The Flower of War
by shallowswan
Summary: When Rip Van Winkle begins to question the life she has led, she is desperate to escape her past and win the affections of an eccentric detective named L. However her will to change launches her into a war greater than any other before. AU. Rip/L
1. Chapter 1: Mein Fuhrer

_Authors Ramble: Well I have been wanting to write a story about Rip Van Winkle forever…and then I got hooked onto Death Note, and I found myself wanting to write in that verse….therefore here we end up with a story linking a Neo Nazi vampire to an Asperger's leaden detective. And yes, there will be some (or a lot….) of Alucard too. Enjoy. ;)_

**The Flower of War**

**Chapter One - **_**Mein Fuhrer **_**(My Leader)**

"_Do you love your guns, your God, your government?" -The Love Song, Marilyn Manson_

* * *

To most that would have looked upon it, it would have been a scene dragged straight from the depths of hell.

Four figures were standing in a vast room that was bare, save for only two things.

In front of the figures was a vast computer screen that was emblazoned with the letter "K", and around them were two immense flags that covered the left and the right walls of the otherwise bare room. Each of these flags bore insignia that would have struck all who looked upon them into throes of panic. The first flag bore the arresting symbol of a black swastika emblazed on a field of blood red. The second flag bore another staggering symbol of infamy, a golden eagle with wings spread wide, it's talons clutching the swastika. It's fierce beak was facing to left, a small symbol that was alluding to the Nazi party it self. Three of the figures had their hands raised stiffly outward, an unmistakable salute to the Fuhrer.

The three faces that regarded the Fuhrer they saluted were stiff. It was clear that none of them thought the man they saluted now could have raised a candle to the Fuhrer that had created their glorious party. This man also could not compare to the man who had stepped up to lead the SS after Hitler's fall…but that man was dead as well.

The man standing in as Fuhrer wore a bloodstained white coat and had long and unmistakably German blonde hair, and wore curious multi lensed glasses. He didn't wear any uniform befitting of his position…just his trademark coat, and a strange white shirt that covered him only from the nipples down. But he was emblazed with countless badges of honor befitting of his rank, and the wild grin that contorted his pale face was unmistakably that of a leader. His thick German voice was lofty in it's sense of pride and power. "The time has arriwed! Kira hast come to a decision and vill now announce who vill have the honor to slay the detective know as L."

Two of the three standing before the Fuhrer tensed in anticipation. Only the figure to the his left side didn't show any hint of emotion. This person towered above everyone else and was rippled with immense swathes of muscle, and wore massive cargo pants as well as a form fitting tank top. It would have taken a stranger twenty minutes to realize that the massive sheets of this giant's pectoral muscles were actually breasts, that this sculpted behemoth was supposed to be a woman. There was not a single feminine curve about her body. A 15 foot long scythe rested easily against atop of her shoulders and the gargantuan arms did not even strain beneath the weight of the weapon. Her blonde hair was cropped shorter than most men's, and to add to the bizarre nature of her appearance was the fact that the right half of her body was covered entirely by tattoos featuring all manner of numbers, letters, words and designs that seemed to change with every passing moment. Her right eye was far smaller than the left and the green pupil stared off listlessly to the opposite side.

The second figure was diminutive and short, and possessed no curves what so ever. It was clearly the form of a child. The child possessed the palest shade of skin, had immense blue eyes and spiky blonde hair, and it wore the tan uniform of a Hitler Youth. It has all the ideals of an Aryan child…except for the fact that there were dark colored cat ears jutting from the top of his head. One had to be around the child for hours before they realized from the child's mannerisms that he in fact was a male….his sparkling eyes, animated expression and peppy voice were far more fitting for a girl. It was impossible to know what was more shocking about this child…his androgynous features or the twitching cat ears. It was more fitting to call him a Cat Boy than it was to call him a child.

The third figure was the only one faintly recognizable for her gender, and that was due largely in part to her knee length black hair and the large blue eyes that where framed by oval glasses. She was immensely tall, very thin and gangly, and had only a slight visible curve of her breast that was very well hidden by the padded shoulders of a black suit that was clearly meant to be worn by a man. A curious curl protruded from the front of her head and stuck at least two feet out in front of her face, her pallid skin was dotted with light freckles, and across her shoulders she held a musket of at least 9 feet in length. A golden necklace bearing the infamous swastika hung down to her waist. At first sight it was impossible to distinguish her as hideous or beautiful.

At the Fuhrer's announcement both her and the Cat Boy tensed with emotion, their unworldly faces were bright with expectancy. Only the tattoos shifted on the muscled behemoth woman.

A new voice filled the room, it was coming from the immense computer screen behind the Fuhrer and was so electronically scrambled it was impossible to tell if the speaker was male or female. The power of the immense Old English style "K" emblazed on the screen was not lost on the neo - Nazi's, even the behemoth's face shifted ever so slightly. The speaker was Kira. And in this day, the only word that invoked more fear than _"neo - Nazi_" was the name _"Kira."_

"First of all, Dok Avondale." The Fuhrer didn't appear to show any displeasure at being addressed so informally, "Zorin Blitz", the behemoth nodded, " Schrodinger," the Cat Boy giggled animatedly as he heard his name spoken by Kira, "and Rip Van Winkle, I would like to thank you all for your matchless cooperation in this mission."

The dark haired woman had nodded slightly in acknowledgement of her own name.

"After careful consideration I have decided who will be the one to carry out this mission. First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle, you shall be the one to terminate L."

Rip Van Winkle's shocked reaction was as swift and vivid as the crack of a whip. "Vhat?"

"_NEIN_! Oh _nein, nein, nein, neeeeeein _AARRGGGHHH!" the Cat Boy screamed wildly and then fell down onto his knobby knees and began to sob violently. "Kira… Kirrrrrraaaaa vat did I do vrong!"

There was no reaction from Zorin Blitz.

"That is enough Schrödinger!" the Fuhrer snapped, and instantly Schrödinger brought his tears under control but his face clearly showed that it took an immense amount of effort to do so.

Kira spoke on without any detectable falter to the electronic voice, " Rip Van Winkle, according to my personal observations you have showed the most promising initiative, ability and interest in completing this mission. Do not disappoint."

A moment passed, and then a truly hideous, fang filled smile spread across her pale face. "I am honored Kira, _mein Kommandant_."

"Schrödinger, you also have a vital role in this mission. However, I do not fully understand the depths of your powers, therefore you will only kill L should Rip Van Winkle fail to do so."

"My power ist quite plain!" Schrödinger keened as he bolted past the Fuhrer and collapsed against the computer screen. "It's just like Schrödinger's Cat….I am everywhere und novhere! I can…"

"SCHRODINGER!" the former doctor roared and snatched the Cat Boy by the collar of his uniform, as one might hold a cat by the scruff of it's neck.

"Dok Avondale, I will contact you in six hours with further instructions, please make certain that Miss Winkle is with you." The immense letter disappeared.

"Well….well done _von Winklle_." the Fuhrer hissed, the overtone of shock was not hidden in his voice.

Rip Van Winkle suppressed her shiver as best she could. The former Fuhrer would have never dreamed of using her birth surname so casually. She said nothing however… she knew well that the moment that she dared to speak out against the Fuhrer would be the instant she fell to the level of Schrödinger.

Zorin at last spoke, or rather she scoffed so violently it sounded more like an attempt to cough up a wad of phlegm. "I vouldn't let it get to your head _frauliein Winklle. _This is the most disappointing and idiotic mission the SS hast ewer been charged with. This L ist the most worthless piece of shit I have ewer seen."

Rip's reaction was swift. "Vhat ist that supposed to mean!"

" Simple. This mission ist so foolish that Schrödinger could do it vith his balls caught under a rock. It means, don't look so fucking proud. This L vill probably choke to death on a strawberry before you can have the five minutes it takes to load your gun."

"VWAAAHH!" At hearing his insult the Cat Boy sank again to the floor in tears and began to writhe about with a strange mewling sound.

Rip's musket twirled swiftly from her shoulder and faced Zorin dead on. "Say that to _mein_ face now, _DU_ FUCKING BITCH!"

"I already did, want to me repeat it? This mission ist so foolish that Sch…"

"_NEIN! NEEEEIN! _MAKE IT STOP!" the Cat Boy howled and struggled about on the floor, unable to process the thought of hearing his degradation once again.

"Schrödinger, Blitz, Winkle, that is ENOUGH!" the Fuehrer bellowed. Instantly the Cat Boy silenced, but Rip only reluctantly lowered her gun. Zorin however didn't seem the least bit deterred and she gazed at Rip fiercely with her only eye that appeared to obey her willingly, the other stared lopsidedly off into the empty room.

" Your nothing more than a pathetic lipstick lesbian." Zorin muttered in a low voice, apparently thinking she couldn't be heard.

Rip however heard her quite clearly. "Yes…I suppose I vould look like a lipstick next to you. To call you a bull dyke vould be un insult. Look at _du! Du_ don't even have tits anymore und I don't even know vhat to call what _du _have between your legs…it looks like a cock a _Jude_ circumcised just to try to see it! If I am going to ride stick again than I think I can do better than that!"

"Ewww!" Schrödinger voiced appropriately with a fierce hacking gag, very much like a cat with a fur ball caught in it's throat.

"Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle, I would kindly ask you NOT to mention any more of your personal life here. Ever. Not unless your aiming for the rank of Varrant Officer. And do not insult my fine vork…and DO NOT EWER compare it to the filthy _Juden_!"

Her emotion was again apparent, and her submission was instant. "_Ja, mein Kommandant._"

A few hours later Rip stood alone in the Nazi emblazoned room, leaning impatiently on her musket and listlessly humming one of her favorite moments of _Der Freischütz_, but as she heard Zorin's immense foot falls approaching her she silenced instantly and stood to her full height. Rip was not a short woman by any means, at 6'6 she towered above many men, but even still Zorin loomed well above her.

"Vhat do you vant?" Rip hissed without turning to face her.

"Don't be like that Ripley. I just vanted to say _viel glück_." There was the faintest edge of sympathy to the monsterus woman's husky voice.

"Oh. _Danke. _"she snorted in disgust. " Tinker, tailor, solider or transsexual, my var head punishes all vithout distinction. Und if you use that name again you can be certain I vill spit on your corpse after it punishes _du_."

"Fine, be like that, but I am still giving you a gift that I think vill help."

Rip turned ever so slightly and watched mystified as Zorin set a large cardboard box on the ground, followed by a stick, a length of rope and finally a box of chocolate chip cookies. "If you can figure out how that piece that trap together, und combine it with some magic bullets than I am certain even du can trap und kill our target." Her burst of laughter sounded unlike anything human.

Rip fought with the fiercest reserves of her strength to keep her face immobile, and to simply ignore the rumbling behemoth…but Zorin knew well how easy it was to make her cry. It was impossible to hide tears beneath Rip's thick glasses. Her only hope was that Zorin believed she was crying due to the insult to her abilities, and that in her single tear she would not sense Rip's deep despair. It was a despair that was rooted to Rip's heart break in the way Zorin had changed over the past few decades, rooted to her secret doubt of her faith in Kira, in the Fuhrer, in the very Nazi party she'd given her mortality and soul to. Her silent torment sunk deeper as she thought of how fiercely she missed the previous Fuhrer, and most of all she mourned her lack of confidence of her ability to slay her target.

Her life has used to be so effortless…so simple. Receive a command, relay that order to her troops and kill any targets she was order to kill. She never spent the time to learn how that target moved, how it operated and where it's loyalties lay. She was simply given coordinates and a target in which to fire her musket. Now however she'd been ordered to wait and to spy upon her target. The Major would have understood why she detested scouting missions such as this…she was after all a woman deep beneath her facade. It was only natural that emotions surface once in a while…especially when her heart was aching from Zorin's bitter treatment. Zorin Blitz was in no way the woman she'd fallen in love with forty years ago…in the past twenty she'd turned violent and domineering…and into a sexless fiend with only the vestiges of womanhood. Slowly, and painstakingly Rip had come to the conclusion that she would have to move on with her life without Zorin.

The harsh truth was that Kira had mistaken her sudden attraction to the detective L as interest in the mission. Now she felt as though she where downing in a sea of doubt and unfamiliar emotions she was unsure of where to turn. But she knew well that when the clock ticked down to that moment that raising her gun and firing her bullet might well be impossible. She was wading in a flood of the endorphins that only lust could create, it was impossible to think clearly. It would be impossible for her hands to pull the trigger.

As she let her rouge tear fall she recalled something the Major had said, the man who had been her Fuhrer up until four years ago. He had been a decisive, sadistic and strategic man…a man more suited to step up as Fuhrer than any other. Rip would have followed him to the ends of the universe. "Disobedience ist the flower of war." he had once said with a smile plastered onto his face even as his war began to crumble around him. And than, just hours before he'd met his death he'd turned his pudgy little face to Rip and winked, " Never fear First Lieutenant, this var has not left the palm of my tiny little hand."

She allowed herself to let another tear fall for the fallen Fuhrer, and than she steeled herself. Devouring one of the cookies Zorin has tossed at her feet helped her regain her composure quite swiftly. She smiled as the sugar crumbled in her fanged mouth…granted sugar didn't taste anywhere near as heavenly as it once had to her, but she consumed it all the same. She couldn't help but to think of her target, the detective L, only now she didn't think of him within the range of her gun at all.

The thought of him all but consumed her. The wide, sunken and staring black eyes. His unruly black hair. The hunched position he always assumed. The sweets that he held so delicately in his hands… she was powerless but to love that feeling of giddy attraction that washed over her mind.

_I love that feeling…ja, that ist undeniable. But does that mean I love him? Impossible! I am not that stupid. Since vhen do I like men anyway, or humans? This ist so fucking stupid... how I can possibly love if mein heart ist dead? Nein…I love only mein gun und only the Fatherland. I just miss something that passes as sex, that ist all. Rip, du are stronger than such human needs, du are a Vampire. Never forget that. Tinker, tailor, solider, sailor…my bullet punishes all, __**vithout distinction**__! _

* * *

_German Translations: _

*Nein - No

*mein kommandant- my commander

*Fraulein - young lady or Miss. In this case however it is used as an insult.

*mein - my

*du - you

*Jude/Juden - Jew/Jews

*Ja - Yes

* Der Freischütz - A German opera that is loosely translated to "The Magic Bullet Marksman".

*Viel Gluck - Good luck

*Danke - Thank You

* * *

_If my German is glaringly wrong, please message me with a correction…I have not yet taken a class for it, I just pick it up as I go along and apologize for anything I have mistaken._


	2. Chapter 2: Vier Uhr

**The Flower of War**

_Authors Ramble: I have a strong affinity for the weird. The first thought I had when L made his first appearance was; "Holy freaking crap, he's so wonderfully weird… I gotta write him!" And now I have. And I am happy. It is my personal observation that L suffers from Asperger's syndrome, so I tried to bring that out a little bit more. _

_Some fans might freak out that I choose not to write the yaoi-sh emo scene with Light and L in the anime. I have nothing against that scene; in fact I love it, it is very sad. I just cut it due to length._

* * *

**Chapter Two: Vier Uhr (Four O' Clock)**

"_So take me now, or take me never. I won't wait, you're already late. So say goodbye, or say forever." - Dead Is The New Alive, Emilie Autumn_

**London, England. **

**October 31, 1979 3:59 PM**

_The bell was tolling despondently in the distance; it rang out clearly through the frigid air. The child could still recall it even though most everything else about that day was just a vague blur._

_**GONG….**_

_The child could also recall a face, but it was never especially clear. Just fleeting details that amounted to nothing. A brown haired man with his expression etched forever in anger, and a deep, commanding voice to match. None of these things softened as the man looked upon the infant that was lying contentedly in the dumpster, watching him with eyes far to alert to belong to a child. The child was smiling. Instinctively it seemed to know the face of its father. _

_**GONG…**_

_The dark haired man shifted his eyes away. "Fuck…." he hissed lowly, and turned away. "I don't fucking believe it….the bitch must have had it at seven months! And it isn't dead. This complicates matters to much…"_

_**GONG…**_

_He turned away from the soft whimpers of the dumpster child; a tiny wrinkled thing with tufts of black hair, and staring black eyes. "Walter!" the man bid to the figure at the end of the litter-strewn alley. "Kill it." He pulled a pistol from his finely tailored jacket. _

"_Sir…." a voice cried in astonishment. _

"_Don't give me that expression Walter. Not after the things you've done. Kill it, and I swear if you breathe a word of this to anyone than I will choke you to death with your own wires." There was the sound a gun being thrust into a different pair of hands, and the sound of a car door opening than slamming shut. _

_**GONG!**_

* * *

**Yokohama, Japan**

**November 5th**** 2004 10:34 AM**

The dim glow of a computer monitor was the only light source within the vast, barren room. The sickly light was gleaming off the pale skin of a lone figure sitting in an exaggerated fetal position with his legs pressed against his chest, hands laying on top of his knees and amazingly he was balanced delicately this way by resting the entirely of his body weight on his feet. His eyes were slanted in an Asian manner, but were shockingly wide, sunken deep within their sockets, and rimmed with black bags. It would have been an understatement to say it looked as though he'd not slept in days, it looked as if he'd not slept in weeks. His hair was a wild uncombed mass of black that shot out in all directions, and suggested that if he did indeed sleep he spent that time tossing and turning restlessly. His mouth hung halfway open, and his thumb lay hooked against his bottom lip. He either didn't notice or didn't care that he was drooling as he stared unfocused at the computer screen.

A half-eaten donut rested before him, as well as a cup of tea that was lumpy with the amount of sugar that he'd dumped into it, but both of these items remained forgotten.

More than twenty minutes had passed before L Lawliet started to move again, twitching his hands and slowly blinking. His breathing resumed more normal pattern, he removed his thumb and focused slowly on the computer screen. He couldn't recall whatever he had been doing before his concentration had been broken, and he found that disconcerting. It wasn't typical for him to loose all focus like this, but it had been occurring all day. He kept finding himself stricken with random seizures of images…flowers, tree branches, clock gears turning, bells clanging, crying children, a majestic bell tower, falling snow, Watari's hand clasped in his, and now this memory. One of his earliest memories.

"…my birthday." he spoke to nobody in particular. Using only his thumb and forefinger, he picked up the cup of tea and sipped absently at it.

Naturally, it wasn't typical for an infant to recall anything about its first few moments of life, but there was very little that could be termed as typical about L Lawliet. The memory did him no good, there were no solid clues. Only a vague face that could have belonged to anyone and a man named Walter lingering out of sight. It told him nothing of where he'd come from, only that the man he'd assumed to be his father cannot have been a kind man to contemplate infanticide so carelessly. And there was something about Walter owning wires, but that information still lead him to nothing.

L felt a distinct certainty attached to that memory.

The bells hadn't stopped ringing. That same bell he'd heard over 24 years ago kept ringing within his head, growing ever clearer, approaching ever closer. In another few hours, the tolling of the bells would be deafening…and then they would fall forever silent.

"I am going to die today." he whispered, but he couldn't hear his own voice above the bell pealing away within his thoughts. He set the cup of tea violently back down onto its saucer, uncurled himself from the chair, and shuffled out of the room.

He might have been a tall young man if he didn't walk with an extreme slouch, his boney hands stuffed into the pockets of his faded blue jeans. He might be deemed handsome if it weren't for his sunken eyes and wild hair. It was clear from his choice of clothing that he didn't give any thought to his appearance; he wore only a simple, white, long sleeved shirt and baggy jeans.

He paused as he entered the hallway. There were two rather unfamiliar figures huddled together at the far end, a gangly woman and a towering giant of a man. Their exchange was brief. The woman had the longest hair he'd ever seen and she wore it in twin braids, oddly enough an immense curl stuck out from her forehead like a quail feather. This coupled with her maid uniform maid gave her childish sort of air, but there was also a masculine look to her. She was whispering in rapid fire German to a hulking mass of muscle wearing an immense brown trench coat with the collar turned up, and a matching hat he'd pulled low over his face. His hair was almost blindingly blond. The very little L could discern of his face was so emotionless it looked carved from stone. Now that he thought of it, L could recall seeing these two around headquarters before, but only for the past two weeks. He naturally couldn't employ anyone for long lest they learn anything of interest regarding the Kira case.

It looked as though the maid handed the emotionless hulk a grey feathery mass, a dead sparrow. The man shoved the dead bird into one of his countless pockets with a nod of thanks. At that moment, the maid's head snapped to L's direction. He heard her give a soft gasp and she stepped away. He was certain he saw a blush flood her freckled face before she returned to her cleaning cart and disappeared. The giant blonde man remained and simply stared fiercely down at L.

"Are you a bodyguard?" L inquired mainly to break the intrusive stare…it wasn't often that he encountered someone who could intimidate him in a staring contest. But there was something so feral and so unnatural about this man.

The man nodded shortly. Come to think of it, he'd never actually heard him speak. He simply lingered about the headquarters and guarded what he was ordered to guard. Matsuda once ordered the giant to guard a broom closest for 6 hours simply to see if he would. That broom closest could have been the gate to Hell judging from the expression on the German man's face.

"Will you escort me end of the hall then?" Another nod and the giant moved to his side with a swiftness that could not have been natural, then followed him down the hall. "Do you want to tell me why you have need of a dead bird?"

L wasn't certain why he expected the guard to answer the question. Perhaps the giant was mute and couldn't speak at all. He only choose to stare at him as his hand disappeared into his pocket and a second later thrust something at L's chest. L jumped back with a boyish shriek as the dead sparrow bounced off his shirt and thudded onto the floor. The guard's expression spoke well enough for his lack of words. _No, I am not going to tell you. You can take it for all I care, doesn't matter to me. _

"No…no that's fine, keep it. I am sure it doesn't pose any significance to me." All too eagerly, L turned away from the German man and the dead sparrow sprawled on the floor, and yanked open the door in front of him.

The room on the other side was typical of most at the Kira Headquarters; barren and filled with countless flat computer screens. An old man with white hair wearing an expensive suit was sitting before them. He spun around in apparent shock of see L standing before him. "Ryuzaki. Is something the matter? What is it?"

L shuffled inside.

The old man took on a slightly astonished look as he did so, and turned to face him directly. He wasn't used to seeing L approaching him like this, more often than not it was him that waited for L's every command. Something was terribly amiss. "Hmm…what's wrong?"

"Watari, it's time." L said after a long moment of silence.

"Time? I am sorry Ryuzaki, did I miss something?"

L felt a momentary pang of guilt for Watari. How many years had he been helping him with even the most mundane tasks? Watari's devotion wasn't limited to investigating by any means. He'd been the only parent L had ever had, the only hope at normality that he'd ever had. L simply couldn't figure out simple tasks, like dressing himself and making his own food without Watari's help. Waiting on him so tirelessly couldn't have been easy for Watari, but he'd never once heard the elderly man complain.

"It is time for me to go. The clock has ticked down to its last minutes for me." It was the simplest way to could put it…he simply couldn't bring himself to say "I am going to die" to his caretaker.

Watari's squinted eyes grew quite wide, "L…you cannot possibly know that…"

"No. I do. I keep seeing things. I keep seeing my birthday, the day I got locked in the tower, seeing the day I came to you, and I am hearing bells. It's as if I am seeing the flashback before the end. I am usually hearing 4 bells; therefore I am predicting it will happen at 4 pm."

"L…" the old man seemed to be begging, although for what he did not know.

"Wammy," L said, dropping his caregiver's alias in favor of his surname, "Will you tell me now, my father's name?"

"I am sorry." Wammy answered and his tone was authentic in its sympathy, "but I still haven't learned anymore information from the last that you asked. It is only pure luck that we know the name Lily Lawliet. The only other information I have is the name of the brothel where she worked in Japan. From there on out all other trails of information dissolve."

L hunched over with his shoulders bowed and hands jammed deeply into his pockets, almost as thought he could physically feel the weight of his shame. "What about Walter? Have you found any leads to him?"

"No…you already know the story. He must have taken pity on you, and risked your father's anger, because he took you to the police station. He wasn't there long enough for him to file an official report, he just gave them your mother's identification card and left. There is nothing else to trace him down with. The police named you based on your mother's initials."

"Alright, it make sense I suppose." L muttered lowly and looked only at the floor, "The world's greatest detective should be able to figure out where he came from, but all these pieces are just a ragged jigsaw that was never meant to connect. At the very least I've made my father happy. Nobody knows I even exist."

For a long moment, Wammy was silent, seeking the right words to say. "Does it truly matter, L? Regardless of the past, you have pieced yourself into a matchless example of what humanity can become. You are justice."

L smiled thinly for a brief moment, "Your right…maybe it doesn't matter. Anyway, thank you for everything you have done for me Wammy. If I go anywhere after all this than I will miss you when I get there." Without a further glance, the wild-eyed young man shuffled out of the room.

Watari curled his hand into a fist and placed it against his forehead. For a few cathartic moments, he let his tears fall.

* * *

**3:58 PM**

L paid no attention to the hostile looks of his fellow investigators, he was quite skilled at simply ignoring the expressions of other people, but it did get rather trying to see your coworkers constantly staring at you in hodgepodge expressions of disbelief, confusion and anger. This was precisely why he had only worked with Watari before the Kira case; most people were ill equipped to deal with L's eccentric ways, in combination with his methods of investigation. The moment that followed his announcement to test out the Death Note was proving to be an outstanding example of the hostility he stirred.

Matsuda, the trademark idiot of the investigative team, was stating the obvious, "If someone starts writing in the notebook they'll have to obey the thirteen day rule and keep writing names forever!"

"It's already been worked out." L replied calmly. "The person who will write in the book is a criminal scheduled to be executed in just over 13 days. If he's still alive 13 days after writing the name he'll be pardoned from execution."

Matsuda made a strangled gasp of horror.

Soichiro Yagami spoke up, his voice grave, "But still….to sacrifice a life…"

"We're very close!" L cut him off sharply, "If we work this out the entire case will be solved!"

A long, tense moment passed. Thunder roared outside the building causing the lights to flicker for a brief moment. Light's watch began to beep, marking the hour as four o clock. L tensed, his fingers stiffening beyond use, the breathe froze in his lungs, and the teaspoon slipped out of his delicate grasp. There they were again…the bells tolling away within his head, inching closer and closer…

He was no longer within the investigative headquarters. He found himself standing within the bell tower of Wammy's house, the orphanage in Winchester he had spent the best years of his youth. His body and consciousness has reverted to that of a 9 year old. He was crouched on the dusty floor of the bell tower in a position quite like the one he favored as adult, and he watched the complex machinery grinding above him with a rapt expression. He adored watching the gears of the clock as they turned, and found himself instantly entranced by the slow rhythmic movement, and delighted in watching the sunlight pass through the stained glass windows to paint the claustrophobic room in shades of crimson, gold and purple, but he never stayed for more than 20 minutes. He could not risk being caught in tower when the bells started to ring. L turned to leave only to find that the rickety door was locked behind him. "No….NO open the door! LET ME OUT!" he shrieked, but his cried was met only with the cackling laughter of young girl on the other side. He knew exactly who it was. A little blonde bitch that had been terrorizing him for weeks. He spun around frantically to face the clock, 4'o clock exactly. The bells began to move, he curled into the tightest ball he could managed and clapped his hands over his ears but it did no good, the explosive gong filled his senses. They blotted not just his ears with pain, but the whole of his body. It was if the vibration were trying to rend apart his body, and liquefy his eyeballs. He howled out in agony, but it did no good….

Than silence. The bells were cut abruptly away.

"Ryuzaki? What's wrong!" Matsuda's voice was garbled at first but slowly it gained clarity. L jolted with shock, he never recalled falling, but apparently, he had as he was now sprawled out on the floor and within Light's arms. Light's eyes were locked onto his in an unblinking, sadistic gaze. A malicious smile had crept across his lips. Its inflection was undeniable, _"Game over L, I win!"_

However, a moment later that smile faded, along with the loathsome expression dancing within his eyes. For a flitting instant Kira had surfaced upon Light Yagami's face, but now only Light Yagami remained. He was still holding L with his expression of almost genuine concern. "Ry…Ryuzaki! Are you okay?"

Instantly L squirmed away from Light's embrace. He found it utterly disconcerting to be within such close proximity to Light whose intelligence was matched only by his charisma. Never mind the fact that for a fleeting moment he had seen an expression only Kira could wear plastered across his face. However, the most terrifying aspect of this exchange was the urge L had to wrap his arms around Light in turn, pull him down onto his lips…

"I…I am fine." L muttered and climbed back into his chair. "What happened?"

"You…" Light's voice was tense, "You just started screaming and you fell over. Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yes, I am quite alright, I supposed it must be stress working against me. Now, back to the matter at hand. I am going to send a helicopter the transport the notebook, Watari, what is the ETA on the criminal's release from prison and into our custody?"

"I am still negotiating. They aren't agreeing to release him any earlier than tomorrow morning."

"That won't work!" L cried in a rare fit of passion, "I want that book tested out _today_!"

"I am doing all that I can." Watari's calm voice drifted over the speakers.

"Ryuzaki…maybe you should calm down." Light spoke up suddenly, and laid a hand on his shoulder.

L yanked away. "Don't touch me Light-kun!" he snapped than glared unblinkingly at Light. Something was undeniably different about him, something about the way he held himself, the expression within his eyes.

L suspected that something had changed the moment that Light touched the Death Note. Light Yagami was usually so calm, and so level headed, but when he touched that notebook he'd began to scream uncontrollably. Light didn't sound as though he was reacting to the sight of a Shinigami, he sounded like he was being tormented by the notebook within his hand. L could only conclude that whatever power Light had possessed, whatever made him the first Kira, that power must have returned once he touched the notebook. That malicious expression he'd glimpsed proved it without a doubt. Light was dead…there was only Kira now, Kira who could so effortlessly wear the face of Light Yagami.

_So why am I not dead? _

* * *

**2:08 A.M **

Light Yagami suppressed a groan as he stared at the grinning Skele-Animal poster plastered across Misa Amane's wall. How utterly ridiculous. She had only been released from surveillance a few days ago, and already she had managed to fill an apartment with her useless gothic trinkets. She didn't even own a flying pan, but the kitchen was full of plastic skeletons, cheap Halloween decorations, and dripping candles if he happened to get hungry. Still, staring at the oversimplified animal skeleton on the wall was far more appealing to Light than looking directly at Misa. However, he could still hear her voice like nails across a chalkboard as it drifted from the other room.

"AH HA HA HA! Ohhhh Schrödinger! You naughty little pussy, that TICKLES! HAHAHA!"

He swallowed back bile, and prayed to a God he never believed in that perhaps Schrodinger was being a naughty Cat-Boy and performing some unthinkable act of perversion on her. Nevertheless, sense told him better, Schrodinger was likely just batting around some yarn and she was over dramatizing as usual.

"_Herr _Kira? Are _du_ still there?" This voice belonged to a German woman speaking to him over his cellphone.

"Yes, sorry Lieutenant. Anyway, we are proceeding with the mission as scheduled. Keep on making the cake as we talked about. In one hour, I will send Warrant Officer Schrodinger to deliver your gun. Make sure at that time you are in the far right hand corner of the second freezer, that is the only blind spot. When you kill the target, press 6 on your phone. If you fail and need Schrodinger to take over the mission than press 4. If I get no response by 4:45 than I will assume you have been taken prisoner. At that point, I will give your Fuhrer the order to destroy you and send Schrodinger in your place. Understood?"

"_Ja, verstanden_. But I haf to ask…vhy not just poison him und have it over und done vith? This seems like an awful lot of vork to kill one man." replied the First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle. Her voice sounded rather odd in Light's opinion, reserved and hesitant, very quite uncharacteristic of the Millennium loyalist he'd chosen for this mission.

Light cringed in anger, "What are you talking about Lieutenant? Your German _and_ a Nazi. I thought that your people never shied away from a chance to prove yourselves as superior. Lieutenant, please do not tell me that you're having second thoughts on this mission. You gave me your solemn promise. That is exactly why I chose you for this mission over Schrodinger, because you never back down. You do your job calmly and mercilessly, and you always do exactly what you are told." Light never once raised the pitch of his voice, but his rage was clear all the same.

"Of course I am not having second thoughts! I vill do this!" she answered defensively.

"Good, don't even think of poisoning that cake. Yes, that is the simplest way to kill L, but he is not a zillionth as idiotic as he looks, I can promise you that Lieutenant. That kitchen is under rigorous surveillance. Anything at all that can be poisonous in any form is seized. He won't even allow nutmeg though that door. That cake is just a distraction. Annihilate him before he has a chance to suspect you of harm, that is all you have to do."

"_Jawohl, mein Kommandant." _

"Good, best of luck First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle. If you succeed, you, your country and Millennium will be honored beyond your greatest dreams."

"_Danke_, Kira, _mein Kommandant_. Over und out." she said and hung up with a swift click.

Light had only a moment of silence before Misa burst into the room holding the Cat Boy Schrödinger in her arms. He looked very much like a grossly oversized cat that a pampered movie star had dressed in a Nazi outfit. " Oh Knight, we HAVE to get a kitty! Plleeease!"

He sighed in irritation, not only did cats repulse him, but he'd only visited her three times since she got this apartment, yet in her mind that meant they were roommates. "I have told you not to call me Knight, and no. Schrodinger is close enough to a cat. Beside I am the one that has to change his damned litter box, so you wouldn't take care of a real cat anyway."

"Meoooow!" Schrodinger cooed and leapt out of Misa's arms to vault over to Light's side, then started to nuzzle his blond head against his lap. Perhaps he was trying to imitate cat like affection, but the expression on the boy's face was far too raptly interested to be anything feline.

"Uggghhh!" Light choked and shoved the Cat Boy off his crotch.

Misa skipped over the bed, and plopped down in-between him and Schrodinger. "Ooooh Light! This is just SO exciting, I mean I just can't believe it! Tonight we kill Ryuzaki! Nothing can stop us now, the world will be yours for the taking! The entire world will be Kira's Kingdom!" she burst into a series of squeals. Light felt his stomach lurch when he actually heard the word "Squee!" leave her mouth.

"It won't be as easy as that Misa. I have to move carefully, even with Ryuzaki out of the way I can still be found out. I have done well these past few months, I have earned his trust. So much of it that he has asked me to step up as the next L. That will be my trump card, once he is gone I will be leading the investigation against myself, and I cannot fail. From behind the scenes I'll rebuild the world in Kira's image." At that thought, Light allowed himself a thin, sardonic smile.

"Mmmmm!" Misa cooed, and wrapped her arms around his waist. "I have the BEST boyfriend ever. A boyfriend that will change the world! I am so lucky! Hey Light…can I ask you something? Don't you feel a little sad?"

"Sad about what?"

"That you're killing Ryuzaki today? I mean, yes, he's a creep, a pervert, he sits weird and he can't decide if he likes guys or girls, but wasn't he your friend?" Her words dripped of idiocy in Light's opinion. This woman killed indiscriminately with the use of her Death Note…but all the sudden she was showing compassion for L.

"What on Earth are you talking about? I only acted as his friend to gain his trust. He's standing in my way. That is punishable by death."

"And don't forget!" Schrodinger suddenly chimed in, wedging himself between the two of them, "_Du_ aren't killing him at all! Millennium vill accept full responsibility for the death of L in the event that it becomes public! Millennium vill serve Kira until the ends of the Earth!"

"Exactly." Light nodded and spared the hyperactive Cat Boy a pat on his blonde head. "After tonight I shall be closer to becoming limitless in my power, soon nothing can stop me."

"Ahhh! Oh Light I am sooo excited!" she squealed and wrapped her arms tightly around him, sandwiching Schrödinger in between them. He purred contentedly as he snuggled against Misa's breasts.

"Misa, I have an idea. Why don't you go and put on something a little less comfortable and a lot sluttier." He meant it as an insult, she looked truly atrocious in loose comfortable clothing. Light often found the only way he could stand her company was to sneak peaks down her low cut blouses and up her high cut skirts.

"What? REALLY! Do you mean it…will tonight be the night we finally make love?" He was unaware that her voice could sound any more annoying than it usually did.

"Sure." he shrugged and did not bother to disguise the indifference within his voice, Misa did not notice it anyway. She merely gave an excited squeal and bolted off into her closet.

Light sighed, lay down on the bed, and then winced. For a moment, he'd expected to hear the rattle of chains and to feel an unyielding handcuff clamped around his wrist. There were still quite a few moments when Light would wake in the middle of the night expecting to find Ryuzaki crouched at his side, staring at him with his unblinking eyes. Light rubbed hard at his bare wrist, and then begin to grin in a way that most would have found maniacal. In only a little more than two hours, he would truly be free of the constraints L had weighed upon his consciousness. The thought of that freedom was more than enough to create a stirring in his loins that Misa would certainly fail to create.

_L. This is it. You've been a worthy foe. I won't deny that. I have fought you longer and harder than I thought I could possibly fight. However, I am stronger, and I have all the greatest powers of the world on my side! With the help of these Nazi vampires, I will…_

Light bolted up and cut his inner monologue short. A God of Death, a Shinigami that looked like a clown attempting Goth was bent low over Misa's nightstand and running its black, slime coated tongue across the cover of a book.

"Ryuk… what the _hell_ are you doing?" he snapped, yet didn't raise his voice much from its usual tone. By this time he was growing used to eccentric behavior, after all he'd spent quite a few long months handcuffed to L.

The Shinigami stood up straight and showed the book he'd been salivating on. A red apple was emblazoned on the cover, "What? There is an apple on the cover of this book. Maybe if you fed me once in a while Light I wouldn't have to resort to eating books."

"Ughh, that was my…Misa's book! It …she was just getting interested in it too!" he protested in disgust.

"Hyuk Hyuk Hyuk! Suuure, _Misa's_ book. Come on, it's still fine. A bit of drool never hurt anything." The Shinigami tossed it over to Light, who recoiled instantly.

"Hey Kiraaa!" chimed Schrodinger. The Cat Boy was now pawing through the drawer of the nightstand. "If _du_ are really going to make love vith Misa, _du_ are going to use a condom, _ja_?"

The words love and condom in connection with Misa made Light jolt in disgust. "Umm, yes. I suppose so, why?"

"Can I haf it vhen your done?" the Cat Boy pleaded with his ears laid back and red eyes gleaming in hope.

"WHAT! No…why!" This time Light did raise his voice.

"I…vant to make a balloon!" Schrodinger whimpered, near tears.

* * *

**3:45 A.M**

"I don't understand!" L sighed in desperation and shut the book violently. Its cover bore a familiar icon that Ryuk the Shinigami had been salivating over. L hunched into a tighter fetal curl on his favorite armchair and dug his bare feet deeply into the leather. His eyes looked feral in their intensity, while his face looked utterly detached from emotion. These features were typical of him when he was trying with all his effort to solve a mystery.

"It doesn't make any since…why is this Bella character so infatuated with Edward Cullen?" he muttered to himself, "What is he doing that I have not tried on Misa? He watches her constantly. I watch Misa constantly and she complains loudly about it. He watches her sleep, but I watch Misa sleep, and she just tries to attack me for it. I behave in the same way as Edward Cullen. I have heard her raving about this vampire for weeks…and yet she is repulsed by my behavior. She accuses me of being a pervert and a stalker. Why doesn't she accuse Edward Cullen of such crimes? Do I have to drink blood to impress her? Maybe I have to sparkle in the sunlight. Should I buy a pair of fangs and cover myself in glitter? I am willing to bet Light wouldn't go to such length to charm her…"

All the while he paid no attention to the skeletal white monster that stood blankly behind his chair. The cursed notebook it followed to lay buried beneath cupcake wrappers.

He kept mumbling on incoherently and wore his fiercest investigative face. Only a dim lamp provided him light to read with in the otherwise barren room, adorned only by armchairs and countless computer screens. The coffee table was a mess of tea cups, sugar cubes, cupcake and candy wrappers. In the background his computer was blaring out a random mix from his eclectic music tastes. His collection featured everything: from opera, to classical, to heavy metal and even some electronic. Currently Bjork's _"All Is Full of Love", _was droning the background. It wasn't exactly his favorite song, but it at least it synched well with _Twilight_.

He no longer watched the clock as it ticked down to what had to be his moment of death. It must have been 4 AM that he was meant to die. Now he'd resolved not to wait, he simply chose to make himself as comfortable as he could, to accept death as it came and to use his last moments to contemplate one last mystery. Love and affection were concepts he'd never began to understand, therefore he choose to invest in a copy of the romance novel that Misa Amane had been gushing about for weeks and hoped that before he felt his heart beats it's last he might understand what it meant to feel love, at least through the vicarious pages of a book.

Thus far he was half way though the novel and left with only more questions. He felt a throbbing ache deep within his heart that he didn't associate with an oncoming heart attack. It was fully possible that he couldn't solve the mystery of this book because had no experience to draw from. The only romance he'd ever known was his admiration of a feisty FBI agent named Naomi Misora, and his overwhelming sexual attraction to the brainless Misa Amane, as well a strange yearning for the affection of Light Yagami. But he'd never even kissed any of them. He wouldn't dare to make such a bold move when it came to matters of the heart. It was better to die tormented by desire than to die wallowing in rejection.

With a long sigh he delicately picked up the book using only his thumb and forefinger. But the clumsy hardback resisted and went fumbling out of his fingers, and bounced under the arm chair. L blinked with shock, than sank in defeat. _Do…Do I have to get that? _

"Watari!" he cried while clicking a hidden button in the arm of his chair. "Watari! Wake up, I need you right away."

Usually Watari would wake instantly and hurry on his way whenever L paged him like this. L waited as patiently as he could for a few seconds, but he got no response. "Watari! WATARI! Wake UP PLEASE!" he cried into the hidden intercom, "I need your help! I can't do this myself!" But he got nothing but static feed back as his response.

"No! DAMN IT!" Cautiously, like a man peering over the rim of a volcano, he leaned over the side of his chair. The book had fallen under the chair and just out reach of his fingers. _You can do this…just get out of the chair and get the book. It isn't a big deal. _But he found his body quite unresponsive to his own demands. Another line of thought had begun to babble throughout his head, and listening to both of them rendered his body useless. _I shouldn't have to get it. That's what Watari is here for, if he cares for me than he should wake the fuck up and get my book. SHUT UP! I am not only one but THREE of the worlds greatest detectives. The last time I took an IQ test I scored 203, I can figure out how to bend down and get a book. But the floor is covered in germs…_

"Watari…" he whimpered even though he wasn't pressing the call button.

He was caught off guard by a sudden knock on the door, "Room Service!"

"Oh…thank God! She can get it for me." he sighed, then sank back into his chair, but frowned. Had he ordered room service? He couldn't possibly recall. Watari had to sleep at some point, and from then on L would find himself calling on room service constantly, "Come in!"

The door opened and a thin, plain woman entered pushing a large trolley that was laden with a fresh pot of tea, a dish of sugar cubes and a double layered red velvet cake that was topped with glazed strawberries. L's eyes instantly took on a ravenous expression. "I….I ordered this?" he panted.

"Of course." the maid said with a girlish smile. Her Japanese was quite good, but she spoke with a heavy German accent. Come to think of it she was the same girl he'd encountered earlier, the one who had given that fearsome guard a dead bird. Her quail feather curl made certain he wasn't mistaken her, but she'd unbraided her hair so that it flowed in a rather astonishing cascade of black down to her knees. Her name tag identified her as Ada Schulz. Like all of the minor employees at the hotel L had personally looked into her background, and like all of the others he'd found nothing of interest regarding her. No criminal background, not so much as a traffic ticket and no known stance on the Kira case. Within three weeks he would replace her with another, and send her to Watari to undergo an experimental memory modification treatment. It was nothing personal, that was just the strict policy enacted to any of the maids, maintenance, and cook and bodyguard employees. Three weeks was the longest time possible before the staff began to talk amongst themselves about the purpose of this headquarters.

"Aren't you hungry Ryuzaki-san?" the young German girl prodded.

"What?" he asked distantly, "Oh cake! Yes!" he vaulted up and yanked the cake stand off from the cart and placed it on the coffee table.

"Don't you want me to slice that up for you?" she said in careful Japanese.

"Oh no. I'm quite alright like this." He half laughed in joy, and seized his fork. A _whole _cake! This was simply too good. Watari was always a portion control Nazi; he only allowed him slices of cake. "But there is one thing you could do for me _Fraulien_, could you look under my chair and get my book…I…it's too far under for me."

She nodded, and bent down to retrieve his book. L plunged his fork into the globs of cream cheese heaped onto the cake, and didn't notice that Miss Schulz had placed her hand on his thigh until it snaked slowly toward his crotch. L yelped and jolted back ward into his chair with the pure shock of her boldness. "_Fraulien_! You…you're…"

Ada surfaced from under the chair, and removed her hand, but she smiled teasingly…the way women only seemed to do on porn before they put lollipops or dicks in their mouths. L felt his blood freeze in his veins, that could not possibly be it. _I must be misreading her_. He couldn't help but to notice that she had the most shockingly blue eyes he'd ever seen. Their intensity was haloed by her glasses, but her teeth were rather disturbing…he'd never before seen incisors that could so easily be vampire fangs. She stood and handed him the book. "This book is written in English. You speak English?"

He only nodded blankly.

"_Gut_, than I vould like to continue this in English, unless _du_ happen to know _Deutsch_. I am not fond of Japanese, it ist hopelessly complicated." In all honestly he thought her Japanese was better than her English. Now her accent was much thicker, and she clearly possessed that annoying habit of peppering her speech with German words every chance she got.

"I don't know a lot of German. Just what I pick up from operas and the phrase; " _Mehr Zucker, bitte_."

She gave him another significant and yet unreadable look. In truth it reminded him of the love struck look that Misa Amane gave Light, except Ada wasn't overenthusiastic. She sat down in the chair opposite of him, and yanked off her maid head band and allowed her thick black hair and rebellious flyaway curl to flow unhindered. "Do you mind if I stay a bit _Herr_ Ryuzaki? It ist my break, and at 4 am _serving_ you ist the only thing I haf to do."

There it was again, another sexual innuendo. L was starting to feel quite hopeless, whose sexuality was overacting here? Hers or his?

"Oh…no, that's fine. You can stay." He shoved a forkful of cake and cream cheese icing into his mouth, "Ohh! Ohmigod!"

" _Gut _isn't it? I made that cake myself. I hoped _du _vould like it."

Like was a colossal understatement. It was decadently delicious, the icing hyper sweet, yet smooth and rich, while the cake was moist with a sweet hint of cocoa. "How on Earth did you learn to make this?"

"I am German, ve make the most delicious of any kind of food, especially deserts. _Mein Mutter _taught me all she knows.

As she spoke L devoured three more gargantuan bites of the cake at an astonishing speed, "I am forever grateful to her…you have no idea how much I need this!" he shoved another bite into his mouth and swallowed without bothering to chew. Most of the time he felt as though he couldn't get the sugars and carbohydrates into his body fast enough. His brain burned off the calories faster than he could replace them.

Ada smiled and sliced a small piece of cake for herself, ridiculously small in L's opinion but he didn't protest. She only seemed to pick off bits of the icing with her fork and suck thoughtfully, "Wow…this ist very sweet. I can actually taste it. Are you sure I didn't put to much _zucker_ in it?"

"Oh trust me, there is no such thing." he said with a genuine smile.

"Tell me, have _du _ever been to Germany? At the wery least you must go for the chocolate."

"No, at least not for very long. I went once to help investigate on a case, but it was solved fairly quickly and I was on the move again. I didn't get to see or do anything of interest. Oh! But I do have some chocolates imported from Germany, I have been saving them for an emergency, but I think they would go perfectly with this cake. Do you care to share some with me?"

"Oh, _das klingt wundervoll_!" Ada beamed. L couldn't help but to notice that she possessed a very pretty voice…innocent, and even slightly childish, yet lovely in the same note. Perhaps it was merely her accent, but it sounded as though everything she said was a song.

L uncurled from his chair and shuffled across the room, touched a particular section of the blank wall. The wall slid open to reveal a secret pantry. Naturally L delighted in secret compartments…this room alone was covered with 50 of them, only three of which any of the other investigators had ever found. This one however was overstuffed with a mixture of carefully arranged chocolate boxes, candy bars, Hostess deserts, books, spare computer parts, CD's and various bits of classified papers. He didn't mind Ada seeing…there was nothing pertaining to Kira in this pantry. Carefully he pushed aside a teetering pile of Twinkies to better access the chocolate, in doing so he discovered his old tennis racket.

"Hmm how did that get in here?" he muttered aloud and took the racket into his hand out of instinct. It was one of few items that he felt compelled to hold naturally, instead of merely pinching it with his thumb and forefinger. In a slightly simpler life he'd once been the champion for the England Junior Cup, but he couldn't recall the last time he'd seen this racket, or when he'd placed it here. It still felt quite natural, a mere extension of his hand.

Suddenly the air was rent with the sound of a piercing bell…no, that wasn't quite right…it was an alarm that suddenly began to screech. Panicked L whipped around in search of the grating noise. As though following orders Ada bolted upward, seized the cloth of her trolley and ripped it away. Hidden beneath the cloth where two things; a violently pink old fashioned alarm clock that was skittered around the trolleys second shelf.

From the lowest shelf Ada hauled free a gun…no…a musket…an _immense _flintlockmusket. How was it possible for such a weapon to just be sitting on a trolley? The barrel alone must measure at least 9 feet long. And even more unbelievably the mere slip of a woman had no trouble leveling it to face him dead on, and she held it with only a single hand. With the other hand she silenced the crazed alarm clock. The face was emblazed with a Japanese style cartoon character, and the hands read four o' clock.

L stared blankly into the barrel of the musket. _This is it then, this is how I die. It was 4 am…Death is never late. I am I ready? _

Ada Shultz was grinning widely, hideously. Her mouth was now crammed full of pointed fangs, the glow of the nearest computer monitor caused her glasses to glitter in malice. "I am the Huntress Rip Van Winkle. Tinker, tailor, solder, sailor; my bullet punishes all vithout distinction. Now, prepare to die. For the Fuhrer, und for Kira!"

L cringed automatically backward, uncertain of what caused him the most fear; the fangs that had inexplicably appeared past her lips, the mention of the Fuhrer and Kira in the same sentence, or the barrel of the gun not six feet his face. Death was undeniable, but after evading it for so long all he could think to do was to mock it.

"Sorry, I am a detective. Not a tinker, tailor, solder or sailor."

A strange look passed across Ada/Rip Van Winkle's horrific face which lent her an air of humanity. Was it amusement, did she actually find his mockery funny? She steeled herself instantly.

"This ist nothing personal_._ I am just following orders. Now… _Mag Fortunas Kugel rollen; Wer sich hohre Kraft beu__bt, Tortzt dem Wechsel und Verlust!" _Her last words were sung with a perfect operatic inflection, then her finger moved.

As she pulled the trigger L clearly heard the steel scrapping across the flint plate.

* * *

**German translations:**

Herr = Mr. or Sir.

Verstanden = understood

Jawohl = Yes or Yes, Sir.

Fraulein - Miss or young lady

Gut = Good

Deutsch - German

Mehr Zucker, bitte. = More sugar, please.

Mein Mutter - my mother

Zucker = sugar

das klingt wundervoll = That sounds wonderful.

"Mag Fortunas Kugel rollen; Wer sich hohre Kraft beubt, Tortzt dem Wechsel und Verlust!" = "Let the lucky bullet spin, he who knows of higher powers defies all change and loss!" This is a quote from _Der Freischutz_, which I have come to adore thanks to Rip.

_Coming Up Next! Cataplexy. Seconds away. "Oh diese Sonne". The shattered mask. A first for L. A 7 foot Scotsman with bayonets. No mercy for the undead. Augen. _

_I've enjoyed it very much! :D Next I am planning to give Cullen Shagger D some much needed attention, but I am having so much fun creating this one (plus I splurged and got the official guide to Death Note) so look for an update soon!_


	3. Chapter 3: Augen Teil Eins

**The Flower of War**

_Hallo! Ich bin jetzt funfundzwanzig Jahre alt! ( I am now 25 years old!) I hope everyone is well!_

_At the end of each Chapter I am going to mention a Death Note rule, sometimes they are canon, others I have made up. _

_After much thought I have deiced it would be best to split this chapter into two sections. I hate to have a chapter that is to long. So enjoy it! I rather like how this has turned out, and over all, I just enjoy the hell out of writing both Rip and L. Oh, and I want to thank Master of the Boot for providing me with Rip inspiration. _

_

* * *

_

**Chapter Three: Augen, Teil Eins (Eyes, Part One)**

"_Meinem Feind die Hände geben - Nein, das darfst du nicht. Darf ich mein schwarzes Herz verschenken - Nein, das darfst du nicht. Darf ich für mich selber denken - Nein, das darfst du nicht." - Eisziet, Eisbrecher _

( Reach my hands out to my enemy? No, you are not allowed. May I give away my black heart? No, you are not allowed. May I think for myself? No, you are not allowed. )

**November 9****th****, 1938**

**Dusseldorf, Germany**

**Kristallnacht**

_The sound was deafening. The streets__of the sprawling city, or rather, the entire country sang with a chorus formed of shattering glass, thunderous sledgehammers and roaring flames. It was a song of change, of exsanguation, of purification. A pudgy figure stood within the window frame, haloed by fragments of glass. _

"_Ripley, come out! Don't attempt to hide him, I can smell out a Jew, and in the unlikely event that I failed to ferret him out, Hans certainly won't fail." the ample figure called out, and began to hum beneath his breath. He waved his thick hand about, appearing as a maestro conducting the hellish symphony before him. _

_Ripley emerged from the darkness; a lanky form with tangled black hair, and immense glasses that hung askew on her face. She wore a German Stormtropper uniform that was at least three sizes to big. Her hands were stained the color of rust, the color of dried blood. Jewish blood. In one of those murderous hands she dragged forth another skinny figure and heaved it into the center of the living room. _

_The malnourished young man's face caught the demonic glow emitting from the burning synagogue across the street. It was the same synagogue he'd attended all his life. The boy stared in abject horror at the scene before him, yet his blue eyes held a strange air of vacancy. That listless expression was also etched within his pale face. His black hair hung in lank, unkempt curls, and his mouth hung half way opened in a slack manner. While he was clearly a man in his early twenties, his face belonged to that of a child, a child paralyzed with fright. _

"_That's him?" the fat man said as he turned to regard the young Jew. _

"_Ja. This ist mein __**Bruder**__, Frank. He ist mein only sibling." Ripley supplied hesitantly. _

_The large Nazi nodded, "Ja, I see. He has your eyes. Und you say he is an invalid?"_

"_Ja, it's a __**Geisteskrankheit**__, his brain misfires. He cannot care for himself at all, but he ist a mathematical genius."_

"_Vat a tragedy. Kill him."_

_Her heart froze beneath the breast that was bound flat beneath the uniform, masking her sex. "M….mein __**Kommandant**__!"_

"_Ripley Von Winklle, I know what you're going to say. Your going to beg for his life, plead about the morals in killing a retarded man, compromise that he might be of some use to me…NEIN! I don't vant to hear it! Neither does the Fuhrer, nor the Fatherland, or the vorld! I have pushed the limits of the Fuhrer's ideals in accepting you , Ripley. If he learned of the filthy blood flowing in your veins it vould mean a fate vorse than death for me. I am giving you this chance, because I know vonce you let go you vill newer disappoint me. You are a solider. A killer. So do it! Tonight ist glorious, __**nacht **__of transformation, of cleansing. Now, purge yourself of the shame, or join your filthy Juden kin in the cesspool we've planned." _

_Ripley wept softly and betrayed a glance at her brother's blank eyes. The emptiness was only a mask, she knew well of the fathomless knowledge that lurked beneath his childish exterior. He spoke, "Ripley, you don't have to do what the monster says. You have a choice…"_

"_Nein Frank, I have no ch…" she managed no further. Shadows swam before her vision, and she slumped forward into the darkness. She didn't loose all her consciousness, a portion of it submitted to ungodly weariness, while the reminder felt the Major reach out and grasp her arms roughly, preventing her from smacking her head on the floor. It seemed like an eternity passed before she wrenched open her eyes again, yet it was clear only seconds slipped by. _

"_Focus!" the Major growled, "Fight off the disease as I hawe shown you, und act! You hawe already killed your father, mother, aunts, uncles, und grandparents. Vhat is vone more sacrifice?"_

_She gasped, and viciously fought away the shadows creeping forth again. What did the Major mean? She'd only killed one of them. The rest of her family the Major simply asked her to write down their full names on a sheet of paper. Was Frank really all that remained? _

_Frank didn't attempt to fight, and made no movement to flee. He merely stared unceasingly at his sister and said nothing. A few stray tears trickled down his childish features. _

"_Ripley, as a voman du are useless to the Fuhrer. As a Jew, du are not fit to be shit beneath his boots. Don't du vant to be of use?" the Major goaded onward._

"_SHUT UP!" she screamed, and yanked free a revolver from the waistband of her pants. _

_The gun roared louder than the tinkling of falling glass, and without a sound Frank collapsed onto the floor. A livid third eye of crimson bloomed on his forehead. A stifled sob escaped Ripley's lips. His blue eyes were identical to her own, and they remained fixated on her, trapped forever in that deceptive stare. The tears had frozen on his cheek. _

_Her gun fired twice more. When the roar died away both of Frank's eyes were reduced to gaping red holes. She found the sight of those ghastly wounds far more bearable than his previous death gaze. _

_Swiftly, she turned away and stared out at the chaos outside. _

_On Kristallnacht, Rip Van Winkle was born. _

**

* * *

**

**November 3, 2004 12:30 pm**

**Vatican City **

A cyclopean sized man with short spikes of blond hair loomed before the immaculate desk of Enrico Maxell. Maxwell appeared as a thin man with long silver blonde hair pulled back in severe ponytail which only drew attention his violet colored, squinted right eye, and his thin, pinched features. Overall his appearance was quite befitting of man who lead a section of the Vatican that was said to not exist.

The giant gave a short bow toward the leader of Iscariot Section 13, his immense silver cross swung forward and shimmered momentarily in the sunlight.

"Maxwell, wha is tha occasion to which ah owe yeh my service?"

Enrico Maxwell gave a small, wretched smile. " Come now, no need for formalities old friend. I am sure you know very well what this is regarding Father Anderson. The same topic we've poured all our power into finding and silencing, and thus far failed repeatedly in the attempt. Kira."

The giants tanned face twitched, and he snarled, revealed slightly pointed teeth that looked the size of bricks. "Kira. Aye. So whuts tha situation, Maxwell?"

"You know well how dutifully I have followed the Kira case from the start. Therefore you are aware that I naturally followed the events that occurred within Yokohama on October 28th. It's more than likely Detective L set up a televised special that promised to reveal the true identity of Kira, but it seems the special was a ruse meant to flush Kira out. That night a man was cornered by the police, but shortly afterward he died of a heart attack. Judging from the desperation of that man before his death I would say there was little doubt he was, or was connected to Kira. But his death occurred before he could confess all of Kira's secrets, which only goes to prove that Kira Prime is still out there, pulling the strings of his pawns. It also proves that the power that Kira possess is indeed transitory. Some even call it God given… this has gone far enough! Not only is Kira killing off countless numbers of our fathers, priests and bishops that submitted to sin, regardless of the amends these devote followers have made to God, but he's stealing away our followers as well. It's shameful, it is tragic. I've never seen our beloved churches and cathedrals so empty, or our tithes so minimal. In only a year the Church's authority has fallen into question. It's apparent what is happening…the weaker of the flock have migrated to the clutches of Kira. Well, this ends NOW!" Maxwell cried in a all too common fit of passion, and slammed his desk with his fist. His narrowed right eye twitched manically.

'Paladin Anderson, the Pope himself has given me this following order. Apart from the Lord God, there is only once force brave enough and clever enough on this Earth to outwit Kira, therefore you are to go to Yokohama and bring him here. Bring us the Detective L by any means you see necessary. And, if you fail to bring him, that at least bring a vital piece of evidence that may lead us to tearing down Kira. I have good reason to believe that this address is the headquarters for the Kira case." Maxwell slid the paladin a slip of paper with an address scrawled across the surface.

Anderson glanced at the paper and nodded as he slipped it into the countless pockets of his grey cassock. "Leave et tae mah Maxwell. I will bring yeh tha Detective Ell. But there is ah slight problem, tha Headquarters is certainly filled with guards and investigators, none of them can stop meh, but how could ah possibly know who Ell is? Ah am ah servant af God, but not ah detective. There could be hundreds af decoys in tha building."

Maxwell grinned. This time it was a smile of certainty, of victory. "Oh not to worry Anderson. I have seen the face of Detective L, and so have you."

The blond giants face was stricken dumfound.

"Think back to when I was about 13 years old. Do you recall a certain child that was taken into Ferdinand Luke's Orphanage, the same place you raised me? The child was only 6 or 7, and had no given name, just a surname. Lawliet. He looked at least some part Japanese, and always appeared quite disheveled, feral actually, and he constantly sat in a contorted hunch. He was disturbed child from the start, he refused to interact with the other children, he used his Bible as a throwing stone and would lash out at anyone who attempted to socialize with him. But he was unparalleled genius. He knew fluent English, Italian, Japanese and Russian. I once saw him flip a 5,000 piece puzzle onto the blank side and solve it within an hour. He was always talking about laws, legal systems from around the world, and justice."

"Oh aye, aye ah recall tha troubled young lad." Anderson replied contemplatively. " The orphanage tha sent him mah way warned me he was ah hopeless case, but ah never encountered ah single child that wasn't set right by the grace of God, Amen! But, aftah the first six months ah could tell tha lad was nae happy at Ferdinand Luke's. If ah had a few mahr years, ah would ave certainly reformed him into ah soldier af God, but yeh know me, Maxwell. Ah canna stand to see ah child in despair. He needed ah intellectual environment, so ah called Wammy's House in London. Tha is ah institution tha specializes in orphaned prodigies."

Maxwell nodded, "And, less than two years later Detective L made his first appearance to the world. It's obvious that the boy thrived in Wammy's House, thrived enough to make a name for himself at the age of 8. I am almost 100% sure that the orphan named Lawliet is now Detective L because four months ago I went back to Ferdinand Luke's to try and find his old files. They where missing entirely from the archives…no doubt stolen by someone in league with him. Afterward I called what must have been every orphanage within Europe…but not a single one had any record of a child named Lawliet…including Wammy's House. I can think of no other boy more suited to grow into the most powerful and successful detective in the world. So there you have it, the man you seek is Lawliet. I am sure you'll recognize him, his is not a face one ever forgets. Your plane leaves in 45 minutes, Anderson. God be with you, amen."

"Thank you, and amen." Anderson replied and flashed another disconcerting smile.

* * *

**November 6, 2004 4:02 AM**

**Yokohama, Japan**

_I can't! I WON'T GIVE UP NOW! _L thought frantically as the trigger clicked. _I am not going out like this. So long as I can fight, so long as I can breathe, so long as I can breathe than I will resist you, Kira! I'll go down fighting until the last instant. _He dropped frantically onto the ground as fire burst from the barrel of the gun. The explosion rattled the room, far louder than the bells clanging inside of his head. He heard the pantry above him splinter into shrapnel. An avalanche of candy and snacks went flying across the room and raining down on his head.

He gasped. _Was that it? Did she miss? Was I fast enough? It takes a musket much longer to fire than it does any modern weapon, sometimes if your lucky you can dodge a musket bullet. She can't reload easily…why in the world is a __**vampire**__ using a musket? Why would she possibly think that is a efficient weapon for an assassination? You can't tell me a Nazi can't access dependable weapons. _He shoveled away the land slide of sweets and glanced at the fanged woman, the Huntress, as she'd called herself.

"Oh…" the Huntress gasped as she saw her target moving, and quite unwounded. She wasn't making any attempt to reload her musket, instead she limped forward slightly. Her expression looked still, unnatural, than the oversized gun slipped instantly from her grasp. "Uh…_nein_…." she groaned with what sounded like an infinite amount of effort. Like a marionette that had been cut loose of its wires she crumpled onto the ground, her eyes were locked still in a wild expression and her overlong hair was strewn wildly about.

_What…what the hell happened? _L thought desperately. _Has she had some sort of attack? Was she shot by a silenced gun? I don't see any wounds. Should I… _"ARGGH!" he cried out when a white hot bolt of pain tore across his right arm. Blood blossomed instantly against the backdrop of his white shirt. He pressed himself lower to the ground, expecting a hail of bullets to begin at any second. With an amazing amount of dexterity for a man pressing himself as flat as possible to the ground, he dived into the pantry and opened another secret compartment. This one contained a small revolver and a box of ammunition. He fought the compulsion to take the weapon delicately in his hand, and with painstaking concentration, wrapped each of his fingers around the grip, then stuffed the box of ammunition into his pocket. He bolted beneath the cover of the coffee table, the only shelter he could find. He didn't seem to realize he still carried the tennis racket in his right hand.

L scanned the room frantically, looking for the source of the silent gun fire, but there was nothing out of the ordinary. There were no windows, and no obvious hiding places within the room. Just him, the computers, the Shinigami that simply stood there in disinterest and the fallen vampire.

"Where are you Kira…" he muttered, unconsciously gripping the tennis racket and the handgun much tighter than he typically held anything.

The assassin woman twitched on the ground, lifted her head just enough to catch sight of L entangled beneath the cramped space under the coffee table, and once again she collapsed onto the floor with her eyes wide.

"Don't move!" he cried and leveled the gun at her, however L wasn't certain if he was trying to protect or to intimidate her.

Abruptly one of his computers exploded in a shower of sparks and plastic, then the edge of the coffee table blasted apart into splinters. Silver skipped across the line of his sight. Something akin to an oversized insect was rushing across the room, bouncing off the walls, leaping from corner to corner and than it hurtled directly to L's feeble shelter.

L didn't think. Contrary to his contemplative nature he simply acted, and bolted out of the coffee table. He clutched the tennis racket in a white knuckled death grip, and did the only thing he could think to do. The skittering insect…no…the bullet…wasn't behaving like any gun propelled projectile he'd ever seen, it seemed more like a berserk tennis ball, or perhaps a racquetball. He defended himself the same way he would have on the court and swung the racket fluidly. The ballistic bullet made contact with the stiff lacings, and much to L's shock it responded to the blow, and propelled back across the room. The bullet bounced off the wall, but left no discernable crater, and raced toward him once again. He responded with a swipe of his racquet. It rushed toward a corner, ricocheted wildly and than clunked lifelessly onto the floor.

Cautiously L shuffled over to the berserk projectile and reeled back in astonishment to see that it was a single musket ball. Undoubtedly the same musket round that the Huntress has fired at him earlier.

The Huntress pulled herself up once again, than growled in frustration, "_Du_ are STILL alive! Oh, fuck me!"

"For a second there I thought that is exactly what you wanted me to do. You did very well to fool me, Rip Van Winkle." He said and glanced over at her. She still looked quite peculiar, as though she couldn't command the muscles of her face or body properly, she was twitching on the floor like a fish hurled on deck.

"Vell, maybe in another life, but I haf to kill _du_. If I don't than Kira vill kill me, und 80 years _ist_ just not long enough for me." she groaned and with a colossal effort managed to half way pull herself onto the coffee table.

"No, he cannot kill you." L mused aloud, "The notebook says that it can only kill humans, which you clearly are not. There is a 95% chance that you are a vampire, and the Death Note most certainly cannot kill the undead. Why would the Shinigami want the life of a being that has already died once before? " He glanced over to Rem for confirmation, but the Shinigami simply watched the confrontation without slowing the slightest hint of contributing anything of use.

The Huntress's face contorted with confusion, "I haf no idea vhat that means, but Kira can and vill kill me. All he needs _ist_ to give the order." she glanced over to her alarm clock. "I haf 34 minutes _und_ 16 seconds left, it _ist _me or _du_. I haf looked into the face of Zamiel _und_ lived, therefore I haf no intention of letting Kira defeat me." the vampire bared her countless fangs in snarl that conveyed both hostility and intense concentration.

Swiftly the single musket round leapt back to life and again skittered across the walls, building deadly momentum before it hurtled back toward L. This time he was quite prepared and struck readily with his racket.

"Vhat!" Rip gasped in shock, she sent the bullet hurtling back at her target, and once again he met it eagerly with a lash of his racket, "How…how are _du_ doing that! Your playing vith _mein _bullet!" she screamed in shrill disbelief. "_Mein _bullet! A varhead that can tear through flesh, reinforced concrete, steel und titanium! How _ist_ it bouncing off reinforced plastic!"

Rip focused the whole of her flagging consciousness on the bullet awaiting her command. She had to be swift, within a few moments the life she'd poured within this bullet would extinguished, and she possessed no hope of firing another. _Faster! _She commanded within her mind, and the steel obeyed and gathered twice its speed. She shrieked, and the projectile rocketed toward its target. " "_Tote Er! Stirb_ _GOTTVERDAMMT_!" She poured all her frustration into her words. By chance she glanced over at her target who stood in half crouch, his inhuman eyes locked firmly on the warhead and oddly endearing face fixated in fierce concentration to survive. Glancing at him proved to much for her senses to handle, instantly she collapsed face down on the coffee table.

L dodged the path of the berserk bullet and didn't attempt to strike. It was apparent from its speed that if he attempted to strike the bullet would penetrate the racket and slay him. The projectile zigzagged back around, and this time it's speed drastically slowed. This confirmed his suspicions; the behavior of this bullet was tied to the consciousness of the Huntress. He odd seizure clearly affected its behavior. Twice more he batted away the wild warhead before it expired itself, and collapsed in mid air. Instantly he thought of an idea.

Rip was clearing trying to stir, her hand twitched and she tried to force her arms to move, to make her body respond to her commands, and none of these things escaped the observation of the detective. _I think I know what is wrong with this vampire / huntress. This seizure she is suffering looks like cataplexy, which is a common symptom of narcolepsy. She collapsed right after she fired the gun, and hasn't been able to fully regain consciousness. Cataplexy is a seizure whick happens often following a strong emotional upset…I don't think that she __**wants**__ to kill me. And with a name like Rip Van Winkle narcolepsy is quite possible. _

Quickly, L rushed to her side, grabbed a chunk of her hair with his thumb and forefinger and yanked her up to face him directly. Her eyes were only half opened and hardly focused, her glasses hung askew on her nose. She looked so defenseless and pathetic that L had to force himself to summon forth another ounce of courage and press his pistol to her chest. "TELL ME WHERE KIRA IS!" he shouted as loud as his lungs would allow.

As expected, Rip seized with fear and collapsed instantly. This time he rolled her face down with a nudge of his bare feet. She had no control over her body, but cataleptic victims often knew exactly what was going on around them, so he made certain she couldn't see. L shuffled on hands and feet to seize the fallen magic bullet. He held it more delicately than he'd ever before held anything else in his life and extended his arm as far away as he could from his body.

Rip's musket lay forgotten on the floor. He scampered over to it, seized the weapon and jammed the bullet down into the barrel. He'd watched Watari shoot enough times to get the basic idea of how a muzzle loaded gun worked, so he silently grabbed the ramrod out of the barrel and packed the bullet deep down gun. He hoped on a whim that if the bullet was lodged within the barrel of the gun that it would not obey the commands of the Huntress.

He jumped away , and clutching his own pistol he awaited for the Huntress to awaken. It only took a few seconds. This time she rose naturally into a sitting position and didn't relapse into further weakness.

She snarled, "_ScheiB__e! _Just fucking die already_!" _Her face contorted with fierce concentration, the startling blue eyes suddenly glowed deep red, her pointed teeth were bared and dripping with saliva. Her overlong hair was now a mass of tangles that hung in curtians around her glowing eyes. L scurried backward with a yelp of fear, he'd never before seen anything so befitting of the term "rape face".

"Vhat…vhat _ist_ this! Vhere _ist mein_ bullet!" she gasped, her rape face thankfully dissolved into one of confusion.

"I don't know."

"Oh, don't fucking tell me that! I know _you _probably have it shoved up your arse! RETURN _MEIN _BULLET!" the shriek was loud enough for his eardrums to ache.

He chose not to answer, "Rip Van Winkle, I deduce the following: There is a 100% chance you are a vampire, your rape face proved that, however there is a 91% chance you're a rather weak vampire. There is a 97% chance you are narcoleptic, and judging from your violent temper, an 86% chance that you are bi-polar as well. Perhaps this is why Light sent you. Weak or not, a bipolar vampiric Nazi is a very formidable enemy, I am impressed Kira."

" Light _ist_ Kira? Vait…I mean shut up!" she snapped, "I don't care vhat you detect. _Du_ vill newer understand me, the things I haf seen _und_ why I haf to do this."

"Really? Rip Van Winkle, you forget that this is what I do 24 hours a day, 5 to 6 days a week. You are attempting to kill me because Kira will kill you if you don't. You're doing this because your bound to your duties as a solider and a Nazi. You're willing to obey Kira's commands in hope that he'll bring the Third Reich back its former glory. And above all, you worry that if you do in fact die, than you will go to Hell for the sins you committed in World War II. I think I know." he challenged calmly.

Anger colored her pallid face, therefore he wasn't shocked at when she launched herself at him. L promptly dropped down onto the ground in an untidy sprawl. Rip stumbled over his supine body . L promptly shot up, arched back nimbly and slammed both of his feet into Rip's collarbones. She cried out in shock and went flying across the room, slammed violently into the wall. Another secret compartment burst open, this one sent an avalanche of binders and thick law books raining down on her head. A moment later masses of pornographic magazines featuring Asian women slathered in whipped cream followed suit. With a guttural growl she pushed away the hail of books and porn only to hiss in pain when a heavy metallic object clanged down on her head. She yanked the object from her now wildly tangled hair, it appeared to be a pair of handcuffs that were separated by a very long chain.

L leapt easily into a fully erect fighting posture, showing no evidence of his trade mark slouch, he held the gun firmly in his right hand. "I do not want to have to kill you, I don't even know if a gun can kill you, but if you continue to threaten my life I will have no choice but to destroy you. Surrender, and confess what connection you have to Kira."

Rip hissed again and leapt up , L was momentarily shocked that he could easily follow the line of her movements. He thought vampires were supposed to preternaturally fast, but she moved quite humanly as she charged at him with her arms spread wide in anticipation of taking him down. He bent over backwards into a bizarre one armed handstand, and used the momentum to connect his foot violently with the underside of Rip's chin. She reeled backward, but held her ground, and struck out wildly with her curled fists meeting only the air. L landed easily in a crouch, and shot the gun twice. The first shot sailed blindly off to the side, but the second struck Rip in the left thigh.

"Arrrggh! I don't believe _du_ just did that!" she screamed and bent over to clutch the wound.

"He who moves first wins." L supplied calmly, he'd once said the same thing to Kira.

She laughed mockingly, "Vell, _du_ obviously haven't fought in many vars. _I_ vas vonce Millennium's first move, und here ve are, defeated, und beging vor Kira to help us."

Seemingly undaunted by her wound she leapt again, L fell to one hand, and struck out with his feet but this time she was anticipating him. Rip whipped aside, and before he got a chance to recover she seized the collar of his shirt and slammed him hard into the ground. Once stunned she pinned him down onto the floor using the whole of her lanky body, and pounded her fist into his face again, and again. The scrawny little excuse for a human squirmed deftly to avoid her fists when he could, he evidently to take the pain quite well, merely wincing when her fists made contact, but it was evident the pain effected him enough to forget the fact that he was holding a gun. He certainly didn't have the instincts of a killer. Rip, however, attacked him in pure spite. Her nerves seared with vulnerability after he'd laid her defenses bare. At this point she'd completely forgotten about her mission to kill the enemy. She only wanted to make him submit to her will, to pummel his words and his body into oblivion.

L waited for her awe inspiring strength to waiver in the slightest, for the human emotion she apparently suppressed to catch up with her. She pulled her fist back again, hesitated for a slight moment as her eyes connected with his. He didn't fail to take note of the flash of horror that filled her eyes, and he took advantage of her hesitation. He hooked his legs around her knees and shoved upward with his upper body, reversing their positions so that he now pinned her down . He pressed the pistol point blank to the center of her forehead. "I am not afraid to shoot. Now please, confess."

Rip Van Winkle merely giggled, and grinned once again. Every single tooth she possessed warped into thick fangs. She snapped forward and slammed her forehead into the barrel of the gun, causing L jolt and slammed the butt of the pistol into his own face. He collapsed with a thick scream, the gun slipped from his hands as he instead clutched his nose that began to swell instantly and gush blood. "You…you bitch!" he cried in agony, it was the harshest word he could come up with for the moment.

She giggled again, and once again pinned him beneath her, again she hammered her fists against his face, trying to overwhelm him with enough pain to get him to stop resisting. It would be far easier to go in for the killing blow if she could simply force him into unconsciousness. Rip suddenly squealed out as a tremendous amount of force from L's knee struck her right between her legs…namely right in the most sensitive spot of her crotch. All her strength left her entirely, her sobs of pain became fragmented as she slumped forward in another cataleptic seizure.

L had expected this to happen, and took advantage by rolling her face down onto the ground. He saw the familiar gleam of the handcuff that once bound Light to his side, they lay half buried in the rubble of shattered wood, porn and thick books. Swiftly he retrieved the cuffs, unsnapped them and clamped one of the cuffs down onto her left wrist. He noticed instantly that her wrist was heavily scarred with razor straight cuts that ran both horizontally and diagonally along the lines of her major veins. Apparently she'd once been a human woman with suicidal tendencies, as he couldn't imagine why a vampire would inflect such mutilation on herself.

That moment of hesitation was too long, Rip Van Winkle stirred and pulled herself up feebly. L clamped the other cuff down onto his own right wrist both because he wasn't certain where he could chain her , and the fact that having the cuff attached to his hand once again seemed oddly reassuring. "Gottdamn it…right in the clit! That _ist nicht _fair, I didn't ewen kick anyone in _die Nüsse _during the var!"

"I am sorry, but this is all nessary" he edged away from her, the chain that bound them rattled noisly.

She regarded the chain and their cuffed hands in astonishment, "Vat's this? You kick the little man right out of the boat, _und _then you go _und_ chain me? _Du_ are a sadistic little pervert, _ja_?

"No! I am not a pervert!" L defended a little to harshly. He'd been accused of perversion with an increasing amount of frequency as of late, "No, I am placing you under arrest until further notice. I want to hear about your ties to Kira, and what the Millennium organization is doing in connection with him. You can either tell me right now, Rip Van Winkle, or I will force you to confess."

"_NEIN!" _she hissed and leapt forward. Now her sudden burst of speed was unfathomable, he couldn't resist, couldn't even move until he suddenly felt the chain encircle tightly around his neck. Instantly the thin metal cut deeply into his flesh, and bit down onto his windpipe. Impulsively L grasped reflexively at the chain, but as breathless agony filled his senses he realized the futility and let his hands fall. His eyes locked onto his assassins wide, deep blue ones that stared at him in a mixture of horror and disbelief. His senses were flaring in white hot pain without oxygen, but Rip Van Winkle appeared to be baring the blunt of the agony.

Rip felt a sob escape her lips, and she tried vainly to pull her eyes away from the final dying throes of the great detective L. Numb disbelief flooded her body, she couldn't quite believe that it was her hand tightening the chain across his neck, wresting the life out him. _This….this ist such a beautiful human man. He ist rare, he ist intelligent, ambitious und fascinating. He ist the only human man I have yearned vor in 80 years, und it's unfair I haf to kill him. I've newer sided vith Kira! Vhy would I side vith Kira? I am a Nazi who killed her vhole family, und countless others vith only un order! This ist not… _her train of thought broke.

So close to death she now noticed the detective bore a striking resemblance to man now long dead thanks to Rip's hands. L possessed that same vacant expression within his eyes that masked fathomless intelligence. His expression bore the same features of disbelief, of fear, yet overall acceptance. Just the same as Frank, he made no effort to combat the certainty of his fate.

"Frank…" she only barely managed to chock out the name of the brother she'd murdered. " Frank, _es tut mir lied! Es tut mir lied! Ich habe keine Wahl." _Rip whimpered with emotion, unable to tell if she was pleading to L, or to his slight resemblance to her sacrificial brother. L's face was rapidly taking on a deep, crimson color, his eyes were half rolled back into their sockets and shot through with veins, and his gasping lips were an unhealthy shade of blue. Only a few more seconds remained before his death was certain and still he showed little resistance. Rip, however, stopped dead in her actions. The chain slipped feebly from her hands.

One of the computers was still playing music in oblivion to the chaos surrounding it, and suddenly the utterly familiar strains of a violin followed by two a deep operatic voices, met her ears.

_Oh, diese Sonne, Furchtbar steigt sie mir empor! _

_Leid oder Wonne, Beides ruht in deinem Rohr! _

_Ach, ich muss verzagen, Dass der Schuss gelingt! _

_Dann musst du entsagen! Leid oder Wonne, Beides ruht in deinem Rohr! _

Rip Van Winkle made no effort to retrieve the chain and complete her mission, instead she sank away from her prey and with shocked silence she watched numbly as a far more healthy color returned to L's face, and he frantically clawed the chain off his neck.

"Ar….are you done now!" L coughed violently, and glared at her with murderous eyes.

"_Ja. _T…this…this song. It's from _Der Freischutz! _It's a sign! It's fate! _Joy und sorrow…both are contained vithin my barrel…" _her voice wavered as she translated with an operatic inflection. "I…I cannot kill you Detective L." Than she shattered.

That was the only way L could describe it. Her wild snarl, the murderous glow within her eyes, and her clinched fists…each one of these things were only porcelain masks she wore for the kill. Now each of those masks slipped from her form and shattered as Rip herself crumpled onto the ground and began to weep. He merely watched with rapt fascination. Unless she was an extremely talented actress there was no way on could fake the doleful expression and frightful tears that rolled down her face. Her tears were bright, and crystalline colored in the dim lighting, and this shocked L momentarily. He'd always imaged vampire as weeping tears of blood, if they had the ability to feel sorrow at all.

How long had Rip Van Winkle been wearing the masks of a merciless Nazi? Clearly she'd worn them so long that she'd given up her soul and taken on a parasitic, lifeless existence, yet her tears were evidence that she'd not surrendered completely to the demon within her body and soul. There was still a girl trapped within her vampiric body. A broken, frightened girl that was now apparent her in pale, freckled face and immense blue eyes. L watched that desperate girl clawing herself from the shadows with his eyes rapt and thumb hooked in his mouth. Rip lifted her head and pushed back the curtains of her hair, her sodden eyes held all the innocence of new born infant.

"Rip Van Winkle, I do not understand. Why can't you kill me? Why are having such a strong aversion to your mission? Narcolepsy aside, you've struck me as a very fierce woman, so why are you crying like this?"

"I…I…" she stuttered and gasped as she twisted her face back into a frail composure. "I cannot do it because…because I think I have fallen in love vith you."

L was shocked beyond expression. Clearly from their first meeting Rip Van Winkle indeed harbored some sort of attraction to him, but now she was proclaiming she loved him? _Such a thing is impossible. She's only seen me from across the room for maybe fourteen days and twenty minutes each day at the most. She's never even spoke to me until tonight. I doubt that it's my raw animal magnetism seeing as Misa has yet be swayed by that. She's certainly lying, and it's a desperate lie. _

Rip, however, disintegrated completely into a trembling, sobbing heap upon the sweets and porn strewn floor.

"Are you alright?" he asked impotently, feeling quite silly to ask this from a girl who'd spent the last 40 minutes trying to slay him.

"_Nein! _Do I look alright! Nothing _ist_! I have betrayed _der Vaterland_, _mein Fuhrer_, _und mein Freunde_. Soon I vill die for this! _Und _I didn't expect _du _to acknowledge my love, but it still hurts to be rejected."

"Sorry? Uh…I don't date Nazis." he offered weakly. "Look, Kira cannot destroy you. I won't let him. It's true you're a Nazi, and it's true that you have committed serious crimes against humanity, and perhaps you deserve a true death for those crimes. But that isn't for me, or Kira to decide. If I accomplish anything in this investigation than I want to protect at least one person from the irrational judgment of Kira. If you will cooperate with me, Rip Van Winkle, than I will protect you."

"_Du _cannot stop it! The vheels haf been set into motion." she removed her glasses and wiped furiously at her eyes. "I vill die. They have me rigged to die at any minute, _und _vith Kira _und _Millennium joining forces I fear you are defeated. Kira hast formed an alliance vith not only the Third Reich, but the undead, _und_ you are only vone human."

"Yes, but that still isn't enough to keep me from trying. " L crouched down by her side and glanced fiercely into her eyes, trying to deduce the truth behind her tears. She jolted and pulled shyly away once he hovered not an inch from her face. This was typically a very effective means of investigation, people panicked when their personal space was invaded so boldly. Particularly when you stared into their eyes. But he didn't see panic…instead he saw only a genuine reaction from a woman attracted to a man.

_I have absolutely no idea what is going on here…_

"_Herr _Ryuzaki," she whimpered, "You are making me…ah…uncomfortable."

"How Rip Van Winkle? Talk. I won't hurt you, just tell me what you know." he leaned in ever closer. Her eyes locked on his for a long moment, than shifted away. She glanced swiftly at her clock discarded on the floor, it read 4:44 am. "Look at _me _Rip Van Winkle, I have to see if you've spoken a word of the truth."

Again she held his eyes, but only for another fleeting second, her face was a kaleidoscope of expression before at last fixating into desperation. "_Oh, was die Hölle!" _she gasped, and leapt up to ensnare his face in her hands, and brought her lips crashing down onto his.

A jolt of shock dumbfounded L. It all happened so swiftly. He'd discovered that there was something in the universe that traveled faster than the speed of light, Rip Van Winkle's mouth locked on his has all the power of a supernova bursting right before his eyes. She wasn't shy by any means, her steely hands tangled painfully into his hair, her lips urged his to part for her, and she shoved her tongue inside of his mouth. She tasted acrid, like cigarette smoke, and her hair reeked of gun powder.

It was an utterly overwhelming experience for the first kiss he'd ever experienced.

Rip's mind was a helpless tangle of emotions, but one thought prevailed. Kissing L was far more fitting, and exhilarating, than killing him. Did he feel the heat that radiated thought her usual cold, dead flesh? She doubted it. He was hardly responding to her at all, his arms hung awkwardly at his sides, to shocked to move. She didn't deny the strangeness of the moment either. Rip stood almost a foot taller than him, and his lips were so thin, and bloodless, far unlike the plump lips of the women she'd kissed. However, he tasted delicately of sugar. It was a tantalizingly human taste.

She yanked from the kiss grudgingly just before her alarm clock began to scream again. This time it's cry marked her failure, her betrayal and her death. She silenced the alarm and whipped away as far back as the chain would allow. She closed her eyes tightly and waited for the heat within her core to arise and erupt on her skin. This time it promised to take the form of flames.

The waiting took an eternity…and the flames never arrived. The only heat she felt was what lingered within her own breast after kissing her enemy. She stared at the vivid pink alarm clock. "_4:46!" _she gasped. A minute past the time of her death. "This can't be right. Kira vouldn't vait a second longer. I…I am still alive!" Numbly she spun around to regard L.

He was agian crouched on the floor and gingerly touching his lips, as though seeking evidence of the kiss she'd stolen from him. "Yes. At least you have not yet died a second death. I told you that Kira cannot kill you."

"Vell…_du_ see…Kira cannot, but _der_ _Fuhrer _can. He can see _und_ hear all I do _und_ say. They haf chips in my skin that always send back that information . These same chips are meant to destroy me if I turn into a traitor."

"Is that it? Just chips? That will never work." L confirmed and pulled himself into a hunched standing position, " This is the only room in these headquarters that I feel comfortable enough to sleep unguarded within, therefore it is highly secure. I have 77 transmitters emitting signals to jam any communication coming into or leaving this room. Only my internet connection and cell phone are encoded to get through. Naturally Kira wouldn't know about this. The moment you walked into the this room you've been cut off from Millennium. Your _Fuhrer_ can push the button for an eternity, but you'll never self destruct in here."

Rip's eyes flew wide with disbelief, "Kira can't hear any of this? He doesn't know? But there are cameras here…"

"Yes, but only half of them are streaming the right video. Those are fed directly to a room which only Watari can access. The rest of them are showing pre-recorded video of an empty room on a continual loop. I set it up in this way in the certainty that Kira is among my group of investigators. Light can access the headquarters cameras from any computer, but I am quite certain he won't know I am in this room. You knew only because you've seen me here before."

"_Herr_ Ryuzaki, _du_ are a genius!" Rip Van Winkle cried with unparallel emotion.

"Staring the obvious, but thank you. However we cannot rule anything out. Light Yagami is very clever, in many ways he's even quicker than me. But I would say there is only a .05 % chance he knows anything that transpired here."

"Than it _ist_ fate! I vant to join _du Detektiv _L!" she proclaimed with stalwart certainly. "I mean that! I haf newer vanted to serve Kira! As proof I vill tell _du_ ve must leave right now, there _ist_ another assassin on his vay. Someone meant to finish the job if I failed, _und_ I promise he vill not end up kissing you. So, can I join?"

"Yes, of course." L answered quickly, "However I will not remove these chains, or allow you any sort of contact with the outside world until I have determined if anything you say is the truth. From here on out you'll be considered my prisoner, and if I find any evidence connecting you to Kira than I'll have to destroy you."

"_Ja,_ I accept that. I know better than proclaim innocence or to beg you to trust me. You are L. Sooner or later you'll uncover the truth."

"Quite correct. In the meantime I would like to thank you for that warning, but it proves only that you do not wish to be discovered as a traitor. However, you're a valuable source of information to me now, and I cannot allow you to be destroyed. Until I have learned the nature of this chip you mentioned I have to keep the signal scrambled." he wiped the blood from his rapidly swelling face, and shuffled over to another blank stretch of wall that swung forth at his touch to unveil another hidden compartment. Despite the urgency of their time limit Rip had no choice but to respond to the pull of the chain and move to his side.

"Umm…how many of these hidden compartments do you haf?" she inquired in amazement.

"Over 10,000 throughout the building." he shrugged and reached inside the latest one. This one chained a mass of neatly organized wires, speakers, cameras, chips, radios and transmitters. L however reached for a small silver dish in the dead center that contained sugar cubes, one cube was slightly smaller than the rest. He handed the smallest of the cubes to Rip and stuffed at least twenty more into each of his pockets. "Please swallow this. There is a transmitter inside, it should be enough to block the signals to and from the chip until I can figure out a better line of defense." He flipped open his cell phone and clicked a series of complicated numerical sequences that Rip presumed activated the transmitter.

She smiled with teeth that where again mostly human, "Spyvare in confectionaries? Vhy I am I surprised?" She placed the sugar cube in her mouth and was promptly shocked by how relentlessly the sweetness attacked her half dead taste buds. She ordinarily couldn't taste most human food, but the overpowering compacted sugar brought her long forgotten human tastes tingling to life. She glanced back to L who was watching her in paralyzed fascination. His mouth hung halfway open, and his sunken eyes were open with rapt attention, his body was twitching as though he was trying to restrain himself.

"Vat?" she challenged playfully.

"Nothing, although you look very…" he didn't finish the sentence and instead stared at her with maddened intensely as she swallowed the lump of half melted sugar only the grab another one, and sucked delicately on it's edge. "Oh wow…eat it! Eat the sugar, Rip! No wait, suck it!"

She giggled coquettishly. " _Komme hier, Detektiv. Kuss mich. Jetzt!" _

It was unclear if the detective knew more German than he admitted to, or if the implication of her words was so obvious that no translation was needed, but instantly L closed the distance between them. He grasped her arms in his typical delicate hold, but his mouth crushed hard against her lips in desperate yearning for their sweetness. He was unsure how to proceed when he felt her tongue, especially when she all but attacked him but now that he was better prepared for the situation he found it oddly pleasant. The vampiress melted within his gentle grasp and arched her body to press her small, perky breasts against him. Excitement flared within when Rip moaned deliciously against his lips, likely out of pure excitement as L could possibly imagine himself as a talented kisser. She still reeked of gunpowder, and tasted of ash, however the sensation was so intensive L wondered if any force on this Earth could have parted him from it.

The next instant that force arrived, or rather it came crashing though the solid concrete walls of the Kira Headquarters. Concrete crumbled like glass as a gargantuan form burst through the walls, behind it a long series of similar identically shaped holes stretched back for as far back as the eye could see. The entwined couple didn't even have time to part, or even react.

The giant shook of the dust and rebar from the grey robes and smiled viciously, his short spikes of blonde hair stood out stiffly against the dust. "AWT LAST! I haf found yeh! Ell, and teh Babylon Whore tah boht!"

It was only with grudging reluctance that Rip spun around, and froze. Her mouth opened in a sheik that never escaped, instead a great fountain of blood burst from her mouth shortly after an immense knife seemed sprout from her throat.

"RIP!" L yelped in wild fear and caught her instantly before she could collapse.

The giant hissed with intensive loathing, _" And upon her forehead was ah name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON TEH GREAT, TEH MOTHER AF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS AF TEH EARTH. And I saw teh woman drunken with teh blohd af teh saints, and wit teh blohd af teh martyrs af Jesus. _Words ah wisdahm from Revelations 17:5"

"What the hell are you talking about!" L cried and tried not to look to closely at the vampiress' wound, the sight of so much blood was enough to make even the strongest human ill, but L had never claimed himself as brave.

The gargantuan man didn't answer directly. "Saa it look like Millennium hass found yeh first, eh boi? Ah shame, ah colossal shame. Ah would thought betah af you, Lawliet!"

L almost screamed when he heard his only given name spoken aloud. It was a name Light had certainly sold his soul in hopes of learning, and now this lumbering horror was threatening him. Terrified, L glanced up from the gravely wounded vampriress and stared hard at her attacker. Quickly he recognized the mans impossible bulk, the rounded glasses, and craggy face. Coupled with that thick, muddled accent his identity was unmistakable.

"Father Anderson!"

_**Death Note: How To Use It**_

_**The human whose name is written in this Death Note shall die, however, the Death Note holds no effect on vampires, zombies or any creature that has already died and arose from its mortal death. Also, the undead cannot use the Death Note. **_

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**German Translations:** _( Yes, I know there are a ton! Sorry! I am a bit excited to actually grasp the language, but I promise later that Rip will speak a little more proper English. )_

Mein - my

Bruder - brother

Geisteskrankheit - mental illness

Kommandant - commander

Nacht - night

Tote er, stirb Gottverrdammt - Kill him, die goddamnit!

ScheiBe! _- _Shit!

Die Nüsse - the balls

Es tut mir Lied - I am sorry.

Ich habe keine Wahl. - I have no choice.

"_Oh, diese Sonne, Furchtbar steigt sie mir empor! = Oh this sun, it rises fearfully before me!_

_Leid oder Wonne, Beides ruht in deinem Rohr! = Sorrow or joy, both are contained within your barrel!_

_Ach, ich muss verzagen, Dass der Schuss gelingt! = Alas, I must despair, for the perfect shot. Dann musst du entsagen! Leid oder Wonne, Beides ruht in deinem Rohr!" = then you must give up! Sorrow or joy, both are contained within your barrel. _

Freunde - friends

Oh, was die Holle? -Oh, what the hell!

Komme hier, Detektiv. Kuss mich. Jetzt! = Come here, Detective. Kiss me. Now! (I hope this is grammatically correct!)

Coming up next! _The_ _Tottenham orphan_. _No mercy for undead. Crucifixion. "Rem, what is my name?" Augen. Bayonet. Blut. Watari and Sprinkles. Batman and Matsuda. _


	4. Chapter 4: Augen Teil Zwei

_**Note: Yes…took me looks enough. Life sucks. =( Anyway, this is not for the squeamish. Here be blood, rape and torture. Poor L and Rip. I tried to off set some of the grimness with Alucard, whom I am an unveiling as a bit off color, but in the next chapter he'll take on his traditional personality. Oh…and for some reason there is a bit of frontal male nudity. **_

**The Flower of War**

**Chapter Four: Augen: Teil Zwei (Eyes, Part Two)**

"_N__iemand gab mir einen Namen" - Mutter, Rammstein_

"_Die Sonne scheint mir aus den Augen." - Sonne, Rammstein _(The sun is shining out of my eyes.)

**December 15, 1985**

**London, England**

_The subway rattled and groaned onward, and each of its passengers shuffled hastily away from the child that was sitting alone in one of the windows seats. The child looked like something plucked directly from a Charles Dickens novel and thrust cruelly into modern day London. The white shirt, and blue jeans he wore were ridiculously oversized, he possessed only a beaten brown coat against the fierce winter cold, and his hair was tangled beyond hope. However the most disconcerting thing about the abandoned child was the impossible crouch he was sitting within and apparently quite comfortable within. He stared nonchalantly out the window and greedily slurped at the lollipop delicately in his hand. _

_The child, Lawliet was the only name he'd been given, felt a unparalleled happiness as he stared out the windows. This decrepit, crowded train felt like a chariot fit for the gods compared to where he'd spend his life. In his 6 years he'd been passed about in a frantic game of hot potato from 6 different orphanages across Europe and Russia. They were always the same, The same closest sized rooms with four children crammed inside, shit smeared across the bathroom walls, mattresses that reeked of piss, puzzles that were missing countless pieces, and toys broken beyond repair. And that were trade marks of the nicer ones. He only minutes ago he'd woke screaming as he relived some from his experiences at one of the orphanages in Russia._

_But now he'd left it all behind him, and by choice none the less. He'd been hearing whispers that the current orphanage couldn't handle him. This was nothing new. He'd heard that for as long as he could remember. Always the same words and phrases the adults though him to dimwitted to understand: Autistic, Asperger's Syndrome, meltdowns, violent fits, a hopeless case, "gifted", "special". The threat of another move was more than he could bear, so he'd started to steal whenever he could and run away. _

_There was only one place he knew to go. _

_The subway groaned to a stop and brimming with enthusiasm Lawliet leapt off the seat, shoved his bare feet into crumbling sneakers and exited the underground station at Piccadilly Lane. This was where he'd been found according to the short police report, an alleyway within the Tottenham borough of London just off Durban road. After a short bus ride Lawliet found himself within a winding street filled with dilapidated homes and businesses, most of the faces that stared in bewilderment at the child appeared to be Russian._

"_Does she have family here? Is my mother part Russian and part Japanese?" he whispered to himself and frantically scanned the faces of everyone he encountered for some passing resemblance to himself, but there was nothing. _

_At last he found it, and knew instinctively from the surrounding buildings that he was standing within the alley way in which he'd been born. The dumpster he'd been found still sat solemnly with the dark alleyway, a silent reeking sentinel to a birth that meant less to either parents than the rubbish thrown within it. _

_Cautiously he approached the dumpster, "Mommy?" he whimpered, and than paused. "Haha?" he said, the Japanese translation for mother. He tried again in phonetic Russian, "Maht?" Lawliet possessed a knack for picking up languages fairly quickly, but now each word was impotent as it fell from his lips. He only knew what the concept of a Mother, but no understanding of the meaning behind the word. "Mommy?" he tried again in English with a bit more inflection, " I am back, it's me, it's…" he than broke off. He had no name to present this spectral mother with. She'd never even bothered to wrap him in a blanket, to carry him to a hospital and inform her family of his existence, much less name him. Since when did anyone name something they intended to toss into the dumpster? The police simply gave him the name Lawliet based off the identification that had been taken from Lily Lawliet's body, once in a while someone would shorten his surname to L. That was the only identity he had. _

_Instantly tears clouded Lawliet's eyes and he didn't bother to fight them. __**How stupid I am to come here? Was I actually expecting her ghost to wait here and tell me where I can find my family? Did I actually think it would work out like that? Did I really think that I'll just wander over to my remaining family, telling them that my mother's ghost lead me there. Than I would only burden someone else with the pain of raising a Autism -Asperger's -gifted -hopeless case? How foolish, how childish! All there is here is memories of people who rather see me dead. Mother threw me away…Father tried to kill me…Walter threw me in to oblivion.**_

_Even his lollipop slipped from his grasp and into the street as he hunched into as tight of a fetal position as he could manage and sobbed violently. He clinched his fingers so tightly that the palms of his hands bleed and banged his head frantically against the brick wall. It was a fit perfectly suited for a mentally disturbed child and it was the only way he knew how to express his helplessness. He lost track of how much time passed, but when he finally lifted his aching head the shadows where far more pronounced. _

_He pulled himself slowly up than froze as he noticed two figures come bursting into the alleyway…or rather one towering figure was dragging a slender female one along with it. It was apparent from there clothing and behavior that it was a pimp and a prostitute. Lawliet cowered as deeply as he could into the shadows. _

_The woman couldn't have been a day over 18. She whipped fiercly around and faced the pimp, but her bravery failed to register in her dark eyes. "You can't do this to me! I'll fight you so help me…"_

_But the woman didn't even had a chance to move before the pimps hands shot out one and locked around her throat. The woman gave a choked squeal and grasped desperately at the mans hands but to no avail. Lawliet could only watch in paralyzing desperation as he watched her face turning dark red, than purple, her body twitching wildly until at last she fell still and limp with within the arms of her murderer. He let the body slump down onto the ground, and he stepped away with a victorious smirk._

_The pimp laughed wildly, "Yeah, serves you right bitch! Serves you FUCKING right!" he howled and after surveying her corpse of a long moment he started to undo his trousers. _

_**No! No, he can't do that…he can't…I don 't want to watch this again! **__Lawliet knew exactly what he was seeing, and understood it without a shred of childish innocence. He couldn't curl into a tighter ball, he couldn't cry because his eyes couldn't process the horror of what he was seeing into any emotion that he knew of, and he couldn't dare scream out of fear of what might happen next. _

_The pimp jostled the whore's lifeless shell so that now her blank eyes stared directly to the corner that Lawliet was hiding in. She was dead, Lawliet was quite certain of that, but he couldn't help but to think that perhaps they where staring at him with in a helpless plea, __**"You! You could have stopped this! Why didn't you stop this? Why didn't you help me? Why didn't anyone stand up for me? I am I not worth justice? "**_

_Several hours later, after he'd reported the crime than been shipped back to the orphanage, and buried himself in Batman comics, Lawliet realized he'd found what he'd been seeking. He'd come to that forgotten alley of his birth looking for direction, for his meaning. Thinking back on the whore's dejected death stare he'd knew that he'd found his purpose. So long as he could help it no man or woman would ever die staring at him in such defeat ever again. _

"_I wanna be a detective! I don't wanna see anymore crime, I wanna solve them!" he proclaimed aloud but only the teddy bear in his arms and the pages of his comic remained privy to his proclamation. _

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**November 6th**** 2004**

**Yokohoma, Japan**

**4:51 AM**

"What are you doing here!" L questioned in disbelief as he regarded Anderson's face.

Rip Van Winkle twitched in his arms, but only for a second. Her muscles spasmed in a now familiar weakness, and she sank against his chest with her eyes rolled up to the whites.

"Ahh sah yeh do remembah meh? But do yeh remebah tha way of God? Are yeh willing tah bow before his commands once mah and forever?"

This clearly wasn't the even tempered and kind Father Anderson that L had briefly encountered at Ferdinand Luke's Orphanage. That Father Anderson was a man who always kept his calm, who would have never attacked an unarmed woman regardless of the fangs jutting past her lips. The manic flitting though this Father Anderson's eyes proved more than enough to inspire a humbling fear within L, a trait the previous Father Anderson could have never wrested from him. Therefore he answered in a rare, obedient tone of voice, "What is it that you want, Father Anderson?"

"Yah are admitting it before ah servant of God! You ARE Ell!" Anderson's craggy face rippled with victory.

"Apparently it's no longer a very well kept secret, so what do you want?"

"God wants proof! God order yeh to hand over Kira, or hand over all tha proof yeh have af Kira's identity! Dinnae lie tah God! God knows yer mind, boy!"

"If I knew who Kira is than I wouldn't still be working on the case, now would I? I have no proof of who he is. I usually solve cases in about 3 days, but there is very little to go on with this case." L lied , and wondered instantly why he'd just protected Light Yagami. Was it because of his fierce desire to capture Kira for himself, or was it due to a lingering devotion to the only person he'd ever called a friend?

L edged his way toward the door, even with Rip Van Winkle chained to his wrist and unconscious in his arms he still might be able to make a desperate run for escape. Although her body was awkward and lanky she couldn't have weighed much. L was far stronger than he appeared, and the vampire he was now trying to protect could attest to that.

"Yeh are lying! LIAR!" Anderson accused with the walls thundering. "FOR THA MOUTH OF THE WICKED AND THA MOUTH OF THE DECETFUL ARE ALL OPENED AGAINST ME; THEY HAVE SPOKEN AGINAST ME WITH A LYING TOUNGE! Psalms 31:6!" The giants' hands dipped down into the pockets of his coat and brought up two immense knives…no bayonets meant to be mounted onto guns. "Yeh have always been a liar, and now God will rain judgment upon yeh!"

"NO! NO please don't!" L cowered in fear of the simple weapon clasped in the priest's hand. "I…I have no proof, anyone could be Kira, you could be Kira…"

"LIAR!" the bestial man roared once again and with a swift flick of the his wrist L saw the blade flying towards his throat. A shriek tore from his lungs, one unlike anything he'd ever thought himself capable of, but it was only a precursor, the pain never arrived. Instead a surge of black surged up before his eyes, moving faster than even the blade. A moment later he recognized the figure in black as that of a woman with wild ebony hair.

Rip merely jolted as she took another bayonet, this one to her collarbone, but she didn't fall. She rose to her full height in front of the detective's crouched form, and hissed in the only sounds her impaled throat would allow. "Neiii….uuuh vill nicc hur L!"

Father Anderson sneered and raised a second bayonet, "Stand down yeh whore of Millennium. Ah will destroy yeh soon enough. This is between God and tha liar!"

Rip still didn't falter, instead she raised her right hand to the knife in her throat and began to yank it out. A truly horrific cry surged from her lips. The bayonet moved a few inches before smoke rose from the handle, then from Rip's own fingers. She tore away from it and more horrid, blood dampened screams welled both from her mouth and the half impaled gap in her throat. The flesh of the Nazi woman's hand swelled outward than started to melt into a formless mass of flesh, twisted muscle and blood, leaving only the ghastly thin framework of bone behind. L heard himself screaming in more unfamiliar cries he didn't think he was capable of.

Father Anderson rumbled with laughter, "Ahhhh just beautiful aye? That's ah new advancement in mah weaponry; handles blessed so thoroughly wit tha power af God that they sear the flesh of any undead beast tha tries to remove them!"

L avoided the sight of Rip's half liquefied hand and pulled her back down onto the floor. Naturally she didn't resist, he was quite certain she'd lost consciousness again. He tightly shut his eyes and yanked the blade free of her throat, and dropped it swiftly as pain lanced up his wrist. He was keenly aware he'd taken an extreme risk in removing the knife himself, but he still watched in disbelief as an angry welt raised on his palm. _This is unfathomable. How can a Christian blessing react so dramatically against skin? Can such a blessing really exist? I am an atheist, did the blessing identify me as a threat but not an "undead beast'?_

Her eyes swiftly shifted back into consciousness, and regarded him in an expression of sheer disbelief and gratitude.

"Nae!" Father Anderson's voice suddenly fragmented in anger "Yeh…yeh dare tah help tha undead! Yeh dare to aid the filthy demons tha walk the Earth and feast on the blood of THA LIVING! NAE!"

Rip forgot the chain that bound them together, and grasped L's hand with the only functional one she possessed and began to bolt to the door. Her sudden burst of speed almost yanked L's arm from its socket, he tried to make his disobedient gait fall into a run but with little success. Rip Van Winkle displayed a surge of strength he had not yet seen and kicked the metal bolted door completely off its hinges. _"SCHNELL! SCHNELL!" _she screamed in her wounded voice. A myriad of World War II movies had ground the meaning of the word into his consciousness, but still his feet refused to heed.

Blunt, white hot torment exploded from his right knee and then radiated down his foot and up into his thigh. He never remembered falling or screaming, but that seemed like natural reaction to such crippling pain. After the first wave of agony rushed by him he regained enough awareness to find himself curled onto the floor and clutching his wounded knee, although wounded was a ill fitting term. It had been impaled with a bayonet just like the vampiress' throat but this time the blade was jutting clear through the bone of the knee cap and out the flesh. He became aware of his screams and once again they were shocking him with their wild pitch. Rip Van Winkle pulled back to his side and was assessing the wound, but there was a jaded expression lingering on her features. For a passing instant of clarity L understood that this woman wasn't lying about her affiliations, nor was she a fanciful Neo-Nazi that had never seen true hatred. She was battle worn solider who had fought and slaughtered in the name of Hitler, that much was apparent in her regard to his wound. The wound itself didn't shock her, it could have been a mere sprained ankle to her standards.

The priest chuckled, "Yeh are foolish Lawliet, to think yeh can run from tha eyes and judgment of tha Lord." Anderson's hand rose, this time he had four bayonets clasped in his hand, each dagger was balanced in the spaces between his fingers. "If yeh think I will spare yer body because of the information yeh are withholding ferm meh, yeh are sadly mistaken! Ah only need yer tongue und yer brain intact!"

"_NEIN_!" Rip panicked. "Don't hurt him! Millennium knows who Kira ist! Schrödinger knows! Just don't hurt him anymore, _bitte_!"

Anderson only smiled jaggedly. His hand moved and L jolted again with a fresh wail of pain. Another bayonet appeared just below the line of his shoulder. "Ah will do anything God wills, vampire fiend! Ah it's a shame ah can't have put that in his face, something to punish him fer lying in the face af God!"

"Stop it, stop it please! I am so sorry!" L half sobbed although amazingly tears hadn't betrayed him yet. Rip shifted, trying in desperation to shield him. Their chains rattled nosily and at last caught they eye of the crazed priest, his face blanched in further anger and his outrage was swift. Another bayonet broke Rip's desperate defense and bedded itself in the center of L's chained hand.

This time he mustered only a thin gasp of horror before white hot agony washed away his consciousness, leaving only Rip to hear Anderson's explanation. "Punishment fer hands that have partaken in debauchery!" Andersons emerald eyes burned with there own brand of pleasure as he stalked closer to Rip and the detective.

She sobbed, than a horrifying awareness dawned upon her. Only a few short years back she'd looked into the eyes of Death, of Zamiel. She'd wept and fought bitterly, but she'd done it merely for her own life. No thought of Zorin had ever crossed her mind. Now she wasn't pleading for her life, but for the life of L.

_Mein Gott…es ist richtig. Ich bin in der Liebe mit ihm!_

Father Anderson took a heavy step near the vampire and clinched his weapons tight enough for the wood and steel to groan. "Sah is this yer plea tah God? Do yeh think tha by makin' ah half assed attempt tah protect tha most valuable human alive that God will forgive yah for slayin' millions!" the paladins face twitched with disgust.

"_Es tut…" _she caught herself and forced her tongue to speak the priest's language. "I am sorry for vat I haf done! I haf been vor a vhile!"

Her words rebounded off the brick wall of Anderson's façade, "Unacceptable! Unforgiven!" She didn't even have time to cringe before Anderson grasped her by a handful of hair and yanked her as far back as the chain would allow. She shrieked and crumpled on onto the floor, sections of her hair ripped free in bloody clumps. Anderson pinned her flat onto the ground with his immense boots, "Ahhh yes, yeh ain't goin nowhere lassie!" She tried to struggle, but moving more than a few millimeter was quite impossible. The smell of death clung to his cassock and flooded her senses.

L began to stir when he felt his speared hand jerking in response to the taunt chain. This time he forgot to close his eyes when he pulled free this dagger from his own flesh. The combination of pain and the sight of blood gushing in rivers from his hand was enough to turn his stomach and vomit up a candy store worth of undigested sugar, chocolate syrup and something that may have once been Rip's red velvet cake.

Two disconnected thoughts surfaced through his torment, _I'd say there is a 78% chance I am not going to drink chocolate syrup straight from the bottle ever again. _He looked down at blood and vomit stained shirt and despaired. _Damn it! This was my favorite shirt!_

A female shudder of terror returned him fully to his senses, and he glanced up just in time to see the paladin pin Rip's destroyed hand down on the floor and drive a bayonet though her wrist. He repeated the action with her other hand; forcing her arm out straight and pinioning it down with his blade. Through some astronomical force of will she didn't scream, but she convulsed with visible terror as the priest yanked down her ankles and stabbed them through the connective ligaments with a single bayonet, effetely trapping her onto the ground in a crucifixion pose. Her face was twisted and swollen as she sobbed, her clear human tears clawing down her face.

"NO! Let her go, Father Anderson!" L shouted as loud as he could manage. "She's confessed to her crimes and expressed an interest in helping my investigation, I won't allow this!" He didn't seem to realize the futileness in attempting to command a mad Scotsman who'd just stabbed him three times.

Father Anderson's face merely twitched, but he didn't spare a glance to L. "Nae redemption can be had fer tha filthy Nazis and nae mercy can be had for tha undead!"

Rip's head snapped toward L. Perhaps she meant to plead for help. Perhaps she meant to tell L to flee, but she quickly realized the futility of both possibilities and said nothing.

L's thoughts raged with distress_. No…don't just look at me! I can't help you! _He trembled sickly as he cradled his useless hand tightly to his chest but the enormity of the pain was forgotten as he watched Anderson strike again with his endless supply of knives. L screamed in protest once again, but the dagger didn't pierce Rip's heart. Instead he plunged it into her belly, followed by six more of the thick daggers, each at major pressure points of upper part of her body. He couldn't imagine what anguish she must be feeling, but even more astonishing was the fact that she wasn't even screaming anymore. Not even her narcolepsy gave her relief.

Anderson kneeled above her and grinned. Obviously he was completely oblivious to L, and ignored even the clinking of the chain as the detective dared to limp forward in a pathetic shuffling crawl. Anderson produced yet another blade from his coat, this one almost the length of a small sword. "Ahhh lassie, yeh sound sah beautiful in tha throes af agony. Let me see what else ah can do fer yeh!"

Anderson pushed fiercely down on her shoulders and forced her knees bend, each of knives binding her to the ground bore deeper holes into her flesh, but only a tiny protest escaped her lips. Anderson must have completely savaged her ankles when forced his hand between her knees and pried them open just enough for him lower the blade between her legs. Rip's eyes flew wide and her face twisted in an expression of horror that could only belong to a woman who knew exactly what was about to happen.

"DON'T!" L gasped. The paladins hand moved and, without a moments thought he rammed the blade up into her vagina. Rip's scream was violent and shrill. It sounded so much like the scream of child frightened beyond words. Each deceptively innocent feature of her face was etched with torment, and her body convulsed and twitched. Her girlish screams racked deep into the depths of his mind.

L felt his stomach roiling in violence, and a moment later he vomited and again vaguely promised himself not to eat chocolate syrup. Anderson hadn't removed a stitch of clothing, but this was undoubtedly rape, the twisted pleasure marking his face made that painfully obvious. This wasn't first time he's seen rape occur before his eyes, he'd seen rape long before he'd ever known about love making, but this was the first time he'd seen it occur with something other than a penis.

"Do yeh like it ya Nazi whore! Do yeh like tha judgment ah God between yeh thighs!" the giant Scotsman hissed. ""A shameless woman shall be counted as a dog; but she that is shamefaced WILL FEAR THE LORD! Ecclesiasticus. 26:25!

Rip wept violently, but still refused to let words betray her. Instead she twisted her head and meet L's eyes again. He doubted she could even see him, her glasses were askew and eyes clouded with blood and tears, but the effect was all the same. He lay only a few inches from where she lay in violation and he was completely powerless to stop it. Anderson was fully absorbed in his sadistic state, therefore L didn't fear when he reached and delicately touched Rip's hand, hoping to comfort her in some way. She's curled her fingers tightly around his.

That's when he noticed something laying on the floor next to her hands, a half opened leather bound notebook. The Death Note.

The surge of white hot unrelenting hatred that poured through L was all the deciding factor he needed as he grabbed the book and whipped away as far as his functional leg would take him. Anderson didn't notice his prescience, instead he pushed the blade further into Rip. Blood gushed past her quivering lips.

"Rem? Rem, can you hear me! I have to ask you a question!" L whispered to the empty air. A moment later Rem stepped in from the wall, apparently the scene proved to violent for even a God of Death to witness.

"What do _you_ want?" she nettled, her disgust was as apparent as always.

"Rem, what is my name?" he asked in firm resolution. "If you wanted to kill me right now, what would you put in the Death Note?"

Apparently the question shocked the Shinigami, she paused a long moment before answering. In general her answers were calm, collected and rehearsed. L had only needed to speak to the Shinigami for a few minutes before he suspected that most of her answers were lies; she was clearly protecting Kira or the second Kira. Now however, her answer sounded quite willing. "L Lawliet would be enough to kill you."

"Yes. I thought so. So it is true, you can see my name just by looking at my face. That is the same power the second and third Kira have. Rem, I want to make the trade. I need that power."

"What!" the Shinigami expressed in outright shock, her only visible eye widening. "No, I cannot do that. That isn't your Death Note, but why would you of all people want that power?"

"I don't know his first name, and I can't keep watching this!" he ground out. He wasn't looking directly at the scene, but he could clearly hear the tear of his weapon stabbing deeper and deeper into her tender flesh. "How do I claim ownership of the Death Note?" In all honesty he was already certain of the answer but he needed to hear it from the Shinigami.

"Write in it. Then ownership will pass onto you, and I can make the trade. But you don't even know what you must trade…"the Shinigami trailed off because L didn't seem interested in the rest of her answer.

L flipped open the Death Note and began to push one of his blood soaked fingers across the length of the page. _Koji Hashimoto. _This was the name of the criminal scheduled to die in about 15 hours and therefore test the notebook's power with.

"Okay, Rem. Lets do it."

"Very well." the Shinigami sighed, but she did nothing.

An instant later L felt his heart stand still, as though something of vital importance had been stolen from its depths. Than crimson briefly flashed over his vision, casting the image of Father Anderson and Rip Van Winkle in a blood washed light. A jagged series of letters appeared over their heads and below them a strange sequence of numbers which he couldn't understand at first sight. Above Rip Van Winkle's head read a slightly different name than the one she'd given him; Ripley Von Winklle. Below her name was a long series of numbers that were swiftly scrolling down to zero. Floating across the paladins head was the name Alexander Anderson. The numbers above his head stood still and spanned across the room, enough to escape both sides of L's peripheral vision.

L didn't hesitate, he flipped to a blank page of the Death Note and scrawled the name with wild abandon: ALEXANDER ANDERSON.

He shut the notebook and watched Alexander Anderson for the most minute change in his sadistic expression.

5 seconds passed.

Ten seconds.

Anderson remained completely oblivious. He unsheathed another bayonet and centered it above the vampiresses heart. The numbers above her head rapidly scrolled downward at an astonishing rate.

15 seconds.

Rem than swooped onto the scene, and struck out with her skeletally formed arms. Anderson flew away from his victim in a comical, untidy sprawl.

30 seconds.

'WHAT TAH FUCK!" the priest bellowed, apparently abandoning any reservations he held about cursing. He surged to his feet. His flaming eyes connected at last with L, and instantly fostered some belief that this young man of no more than 100 pounds with a knife though his knee could have possibly moved his 500 pound bulk. "Ohh yeh will pay nahw yeh little freak! I'll show…" his eyes bugged wide. In disbelief L watched the gargantuan hand clap over his heart.

"Augh…I….ARRRGGHH!" the roar caused pieces of the already decimated wall to collapse further. Anderson toppled over once again in a limp pile and fell still. His jaw was slack and eyes still opened, hand frozen on his chest. L found it to be an extremely fitting death. Heart attacks appeared infinitely painful, he hoped the priest felt every lethal jolt a thousand fold. Father Alexander Anderson didn't even deserve the chance to close his eyes. A man like that didn't deserve a fleeting second of peace before his death.

L shuffled to where Rip lay and instantly began to pull out the bayonets his good hand. When her hands were free she tried to pull herself up, but negleted to take the violation between her legs and instead cried out violently, collapsed partially onto L.

"Ahhhh _Gott_! Vhy does this keep happening to me! _Warum!" _she gasped, and spared a glace down at her savaged gentiles. L didn't look too closely, the damage to her lower abdomen alone was enough to rival any other brutality he'd ever seen. He merely took notice of the handle protruding from her body and reached down to grasp it.

"I am very sorry about this." he apologized about both the situation and the fact that he held his hand between her legs, but there wasn't anything erotic about the moment. All he could feel was torn flesh and blood. She didn't scream as much as he expected her to when he finally wrenched the weapon free, but her tears flowed unhindered and she curled tighter against him. She didn't seem to care that his shirt was soaked in blood, sweat and vomit. Overall she was holding up remarkably well for a woman who'd just been savaged in the worst way a woman could be.

"_Was_ happened? I don't understand, what pushed him over and why did he just fall over?" she inquired, trying to desperately to control her tears. He found himself wishing to stoke her hair, and try to comfort her, but that was quite impossible. His only functional hand was working to pull out what he counted as 36 bayonets. Adrenaline had eased some of his pain, but that was quickly wearing away.

L nodded to the Death Note, " I don't know why the Shinigami intervened but the notebook over there is what Kira's been using as his weapon. That's what gives him his power. To kill the priest I….I just became Kira!" The terror of those words chilled him to the deepest recesses of his soul, and once more he found himself aware of the aware of the emptiness deep with his heart. Just what had the Shinigami taken from him?

At least now the numbers above Rip's head were still, at first glance he saw no pattern to them. 223 6547 8232 14, but a moment later understanding flashed into his mind without any previous clue as to the meaning. It was her lifespan translated into the terms of the Shinigami realm. May 13th 13,996 A.D. He jolted. It was reassuring to see that she wouldn't die from her injuries but was it really possible any living creature could survive for so long? Was that a predestined date of death? Hadn't she already died a mortal death? Only a few moments ago that date neared zero.

"You became Kira?" she answered in astonishment. "Vhy?"

"I am not a man to sit by idly when a woman is getting tortured and raped. I had to do something, that was the only weapon I could fight with."

She didn't say anything more, she simply stared up at him with astonished blue eyes, unable to believe the thought that a man had actually defended her. This had never before happened, and L could see that written quite plainly on her face.

The movement sent bolts of pain lancing up his right arm, but he shifted so that her neck and shoulders rested in the crook of his elbow, then leaned down and kissed her lips lightly. He wasn't certain if he did it out curiosity or out of necessity to express the emotions that had sprung up so swiftly regarding this woman, but he didn't regret it. Not even when her wildness instantly surface and she urged his mouth open and the taste of her bitter blood flooded his senses. Seconds ticked by with the ease of a single instant before either one of them parted and opened their eyes.

By that time neither one of them noticed that Alexander Anderson's eyes were not still. They shifted and focused directly on the entwined pair.

* * *

_**(Two hours before )**_

**Yokohoma, Japan**

**1:55 am**

Alucard couldn't read many of the characters plastered on the highway he was flying down, but that didn't matter. He couldn't recall the last time he'd obeyed the signs he could read. The No Life King was sticking his head out of the window of his stolen Porsche, and panting with excitement, his fangs gleaming and his long, ragged black hair whipped away from his face and twisted back behind his shoulders. He rounded a hairpin tight curve of the Metropolitan Expressway at 180 miles an hour and tore his way onto the expansive bridge linking him to Yokohoma. He withdrew back into the car and grinned as he spied a small pack of tiny, efficient Japanese cars meandering across the bridge. He pressed the accelerator to the floor and rushed up to meet them. All it took was a slight graze across the side of the bumper for his mad acceleration to jolt the miniature car before him and send it spinning into a wild fishtail.

Alucard cackled with laughter and wove into the tangle of cars, and struck each one with surgical precision. The No Life King's uncanny senses told him exactly where to strike and how to escape before his own car suffered impact. The drivers began to swerve wildly, trying to avoid the crazed driver in their midst. Vehicles all around him began to collide, crumple and flip; a second later bits of metal, smoke and a few flames trailed behind Alucard.

"Yes! YES!" he roared and rushed onto the next flock of cars. This time he did two things. First he pulled free an immense barreled gun from the pockets of his blood red duster. Than he unsnapped his black pants and yanked out his fully erect dick, a swollen and veiny appendage almost as large has his pistol. He leaned fully out of the shattered window and aimed his gun at the back windows. Six shots rang out with a roar that rivaled thunder, and instant later blood flooded the windows of each car. Alucard's laughter was almost as deafening as his guns as he twined through the twist of cars and emerged relatively unscathed.

Now the highway was relativity clear, and for the moment Alucard found that pleasing. It gave him a moment to stroke himself with a ferocity so violent it looked as thought he was trying to tear it right off his body. A kaleidoscope of images played across his mind and fueled his lust, namely cars swerving and bursting into flame, the explosion of blood that splattered across the windows, but all to soon the images shifted. As of late they all funneled right back to a woman, no matter how desperately Alucard tried to stifle the images.

He still fondly recalled her screams as he pinned her down and rammed her so violently with his erect weapon that blood trickled down her legs. He recalled the gaping wound beneath her left breast, just inches from her heart and how the blood flowed once he tore the wound deeper with his teeth. Most of all he remember when she finally submitted, the moment when she'd just go limp beneath him, and a blush would color her face and soon the soft whimpers of orgasm escaped her lipsThese past few weeks he'd thought of her more times that he cared to admit.

That delicious slave, his prize pilfered from the undead Nazi's. Rip Van Winkle.

The largest aspect of his desire for her was simply the way she crumbled with defeat, yet she'd never pleaded for his mercy.

_Yes…yes I like that very much in a woman! _Often times he found himself preoccupied with the hideousness of the Nazi woman, but that had melted away into an enchanting feminity once he'd stripped away her defenses and her clothing. Rumor had it that she'd been strict carpet muncher before he claimed her, but Alucard was willing to bet that had changed now that she'd tasted a man.

His phone blared to life. He didn't remove his hand from his cock as he answered it, but instead drove with his knees. The second he clicked it on an enraged female voice screamed over the line, "ALUCARD! ARE YOU THERE YET! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU!"

"Where do you think I am my Master? I am in Japan, just as you ordered. I am about ten minutes away from Yokohoma."

"You bloody well better be! Do I need to remind you of your mission? Serve and protect! THAT IS IT! I don't care even if he asks you to do anything else, you report to me first! And DON'T kill anyone, even if it is Kira!"

" You should have mentioned the killing part earlier" he sighed nonchalantly, "Anyway, I understood you first time Master!" He didn't like to be reminded of this mission, simply because it was idiotic. There was nothing for him do. Intelligence had reached Hellsing that Millennium has joined forces with Kira, therefore Integra had sent Alucard on this absurd mission: Find and protect Detective L at all costs.

"I still fail to see why I have to do this, this is a mission better suited for the Police Girl! Serve and protect! Didn't that ever cross your mind?"

"Of course it has!" Integra screamed with her trademark passionate annoyance. "Do you honestly think I really _want_ to send you, the No Life King, on this mission? Of course not, but my hands are tied. I cannot trust the life of Detective L to the second best. If it is true that Millennium has joined with Kira than L is the only shred of hope we've left! So _you_ must defend him. Besides, chances are Detective L is male, therefore I don't need to his cognitive ability distracted by the sight of Seras' enormous breasts!"

"Good point." Alucard grunted and again focused the blunt of his attentions back onto stroking himself.

Integra didn't say anything, but her momentary silence gave evidence that she seemed to have some idea of how Alucard was occupying himself. He could just imagine the shock coloring her regal face. "Just find him, and call me the instant you do!" she hung up with a swift click.

A smile twisted his thin lips, that woman needed to get laid. Badly.

He crossed into the blinding city lights of Yokohoma and then swiftly forgot about his exposed dick. His mouth filled with the tang of distaste for his mission, it tasted much like decaying blood.

All of this was just a case of overreaction. From the start Alucard had found Kira to be a slightly intriguing figurehead of power, the rare kind that truly dominated the media and planted fear into countless minds. But unlike Hitler, unlike Stalin, unlike Mussolini, and unlike himself, Kira knew nothing of the strength it took to dominate the world. _I could show Kira a thing or two…or maybe two million things. Kira is nothing more than a righteous little piss ant with a dream and a supernatural power, that isn't what it takes to rule an empire! Soon enough his subjects will trample all over him. _

Alucard never had any interest in L, and that was because L stood no chance against Kira.

As weak as Kira was, L was almost defenseless. His only weapon was intellect. Intellect was useless against the supernatural. Alucard had never fell victim to an enemy that simply outwitted him. It just wasn't enough. Soon enough Kira would bury L in the ground, and piss on his grave. Unless Hellsing intervened . Now maybe the human behind the powerful title held some chance of battle. The thought of meeting L was a terribly bitter pill for Alucard to swallow. He could already see him now; a pudgy, balding, middle aged man in a expensive tweed suit and a trademark pipe to liken his image to Sherlock Holmes. Chances were this L likely headed a vast organization of detectives that reported to him, L himself probably did none of the investigative work.

These were exactly the kind of men Alucard preferred to drink for breakfast.

The buildings hemmed in closely and Alucard grudgingly slowed his speed to 90 miles an hour and attempted to keep a close eye out for the characters that matched the ones Integra told him to seek. He turned wildly onto the dark sides streets, raced down one ways in the opposite direction, and jumped the car onto the sidewalks, created points systems for scaring pedestrians (now that Integra had ordered him not kill he was obliged to obey) and giggled all the while. It masked his growing frustration of the fact that he was utterly lost.

Than a glowing marquee sign in 'Engrish' grabbed the full of the Vampire King's attention.

**BATMAN RETURN! SHOW SPECIALING NIGHT AT ON 2:00! **

Despite the garbled translation the implication of the sign was clear enough.

"Batman Returns! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!" Alucard yelped in an excited panic and he swerved the stolen Porsche into the theater and pulled across three parking spaces. He yanked his single traveling bag out of the passenger seat and hurriedly pulled out some the contents. It contained only the necessities; boxes of extra rounds, packets of medical blood and a self made Batman costume he kept with him on all his travels just for this moment; special fan screening when he could flaunt his daunting appreciation of the caped crusader. This costume felt simply like another form for Alucard to assume, one he took a strange pride in assuming with actual clothing, rather mere shape shifting. Sometimes it was refreshing to take on the identity of another, but granted he'd alter forms to be more fitting to his identity.

Without any reservation Alucard leapt out of the car and stripped off every stitch of his scarlet and ebony clothing. He noticed a gaggle of Japanese women staring in wide mouthed shock as Alucard stood completely naked, savoring the momentary breeze on his bare flesh. He winked at the women, flashed his fangs, and thrust his hips forth to make absolute certain they could appreciate his naked body. He paused only a moment more to listen to the women giggle in a coquettish Japanese manner, than he pulled on his costume and rushed into the theater. His guns remained strapped to his hips, but his cell phone, and all other reminders of his mission remained in the car.

* * *

**5:12 AM**

Rip was the first to part from their embrace, but only for a moment so she could allow herself a glance into L's eyes. She was momentarily astonished that his piercing stare still betrayed no emotion. She certainly couldn't deny the glowing threads of desire that bound them together, its strength was so intensive that she couldn't even recall her injuries. She leaned up and kissed him quickly on the check, then whispered in his ear, _"Ich liebe dich!"_

The three simple words felt quite natural, a firm affirmation of feelings she couldn't deny. She'd always been one to love quickly, and passionately, but never this swiftly. A fresh pang of pain surfaced when again L didn't react to them.

"Rip Van Winkle, we have a serious problem. Right now I am merely functioning on an adrenaline rush, I've never experienced injuries of this magnitude. I predict that in about ten seconds the pain will strike, and I'll be unable to move. I don't think you'll be able to carry me, and further more you mentioned another assassin, but it is quite obvious Alexander Anderson was no the one you meant."

"_Nein_, he isn't," she whispered in defeat, "But…Schrodinger…he should be here by now…newer mind. I haf to get _du_ out of here. Don't vorry, I can still valk. My heart ist not pierced, I vill heal."

Rip struggled to rise her feet, it was anguishing but she'd certainly felt worse pain. Anderson blade couldn't begin to complete with the cruelty of Zamiel. She moved to clasp L's hand with her chained one, then paused in astonishment. She'd forgotten all about the fact that the appendage had been reduced to bone minutes before, but now where there had only been bone, she saw traces of muscle and connective tissue. She already gained movement over the bones. She was regenerating, and far faster than she'd ever had before.

L still backed away from her hand in horror, quite oblivious to her healing. His face was covered in blood. She'd tasted it distinctly in their kiss. _"Klar!" _she whispered, "It's because of _du_!" she gasped, _"Es ist dein Blut!" _She recalled the enticing sweetness that flavored their kiss, laced deeply into his blood and saliva. At first thought she'd assumed it was merely due to sugar, but this miraculous healing proved it was the sweetness of innocence ; the blood of a virgin. Nothing else could be more beneficial to a vampire.

That knowledge infected her with a lust unlike anything human. Her eyes blazed with a crimson bloodlust, her fangs lengthen and she plunged toward his neck. L didn't have the time to react, to even resist, but Rip's fangs were denied their lust when a familiar fist closed around her hair and yanked her backward once again

She forced a presence of calm to return her senses, but the effort proved to be quite in vain when she took in the immense form of Alexander Anderson . Anderson flung Rip across the room, a mere annoyance to the heaving brick wall of a giant who fixated his wraith down on L.

"Yeh dare tah kill meh! YEH DARE TO THINK THAT A MERE HEART ATTACK CAN SUPRESS THA WRAITH AH GOD! God is deathless, boy! Amen!" Anderson's eye fell instantly to the black notebook laying discarded on the floor, neither or them saw the priest bend down to take it before it appeared in his hands. He regarded the blatant defeat within L's face and glanced disinterestedly at the Shinigami standing behind him.

"Ahhh! Sah this is it than! Ah haven't seen one of these fer at least 50 years. Yes! It all make sense now! Makes perfect sense! Ah haf my answers, sah yeh have no purpose left on God's Earth now."

More endless blades appeared from his coat, and he lunged at L in a streak of grey.

Rip hissed, bared her fangs and leapt panther like at the priest. She vaulted the whole of her body weight into him, but apparently the vampiress was capable of hidden reserves of strength because Anderson staggered at the force of her impact. L was jerked along the chain, but he promptly curled into as tight a ball as his wounds would allow him to do. Rip sank her hands, including her half skeletal one deep into his flesh and clung to him with all like a over playful kitten. Anderson flailed, tried to shove one of his blade into her heart but she avoided deftly.

Her body was wracked with agony, she bleed profusely, her consciousness swam with her sleeping curse, but she refused to acknowledge any of these weakness. This priest had not only attacked and wounded the man she'd fallen in love with, but he'd violated her with the only holy blade he was permitted to use. However the most enraging crime was the fact he refused to stay dead even when it came to the power of Kira. She couldn't let L's sacrifice be in vain.

Anderson reeled back with a faint hiss, and clutched at his right eye. Something with jagged edges struck his craggy face, it was no ore annoying that an ant bite, but all the same Anderson thundered in anger. L had uncurled and was hurling projectiles at him…unfortunately his bullets were merely sugar cubes.

Rip gasped, "That's it! _Ich habe Pläne_!" She curled her hands into hooks and plunged both claws into his fierce green eyes. Anderson didn't shout, but he did flail and buck wildly as blood gushed from his face, and jerked when Rip plunked out two misshapen orbs still hanging from the retinas. She grunted in disgusted as one of the eyeballs clung rebelliously to her skeletal finger, and fiercely shook it lose.

She leapt off Andersons back and rushed back to L's side. Anderson stumbled about blindly, clutching the bloody sockets of his eyes and bellowing with all the volume of an enraged bull.

"L! Vhere _ist _your candy? Not deserts, I need hard candy! " she shouted firmly, hoping he could hear her, she'd not seen a human look so terrified since the war.

He responded and didn't even appear to find anything out of the ordinary about her request. "In the next room. Look under the Van Gogh reproduction." he supplied in an oddly calm voice.

Rip glanced in the direction of the next room which was quite exposed due to the immense Anderson shaped hole in the wall. The painting hiding L's vault of sweets was located next to a expansive window.

Rip gathered L into her arms easily, and with a bayonet through his knee he didn't protest to this treatment. Rip paused for a second, waiting for her moment. Anderson huffed, and pulled his hands away from where his eyes had been. Only about 30 seconds had passed since Rip yanked them free, but now the eye that hung like a misplaced Christmas ornament on his cheek moved back toward its socket and popped obediently into its rightful place. The missing eye surfaced from the depths of his flesh, pushing blood and torn tissue out of the socket before it settled.

Once his sight returned Rip ran, leaping through the hole in the wall and into the next room, headed straight toward the window. Naturally Anderson followed.

"Rip…don't! I can't…" L panicked.

"I am sorry!" she yelled, than dropped him onto the floor. There was a vague notion of method to her madness, he didn't land on either of the bayonets protruding from his flesh, and through sheer willpower he managed to keep his cry held inside.

The priest paused for just a second, hesitating before deciding which sinner deserved his judgment. This was just what she'd expected. Rip tore the painting from the wall, and wrenched the sweets vault open. The inside resembled the wall of a candy store, complete with large plastic dispensers filled with Pez, peppermints, Lifesavers, gummy worms, Starburst and at least three others she couldn't name. A violent shove was all it took to shatter the dispensers, and send an avalanche of candy raining across the tiled floor.

Anderson boots faltered the second they encountered the mass of sweets. _Exactly as planned! _She thought in victory and fired. Her aim was as matchless, but instead of bullets leaving her trained hand her attack took the form of two Starburst. Both sank eagerly into Andersons eyes with small geyser of blood and ocular fluid. His balance swayed precariously, enough for Rip to bolt forward and push him violently toward the window with a triumphant cry.

She would have failed had L not figured out her plan and acted. He seized Anderson by the ankles, on this unsteady ground it was enough to topple the giant. The back of his head crashed against the glass hard enough to send cracks crawling across the pane. L seized the notebook clutched within Anderson's hands, just the giants eyes began to clear of blood and wrapped taffy.

A series of short lived explosions rent through the air, Anderson jerked spastically when a series of bullet hole appeared across his forehead. L whipped around toward the source of the gunfire, but Rip didn't pause. Instead she shoved his bulk into the window. This time the glass shattered with his weight and the giant tumbled limply out of sight.

"Wat….WATARI!' L cried, and thrust his hands outward, appearing very much like a child that had sighted his father from across the room.

An elderly man with white hair, and an expensive suit stepped through the hole in the wall; he held an Uzi submachine gun firmly in his hand. Rip vaguely recognized him as the man she'd who interviewed her for her job at these headquarters.

Watari cried out as though wounded once he took in the blood soaked mass that was only vaguely recognizable as L, and swiftly crossed the room to shelter L in his embrace. An unreadable shocked expression flashed across L's face then instantly his composure broke, and much like the vampiress had less than an hour before; he collapsed into tears.

Rip spun around from the window and glanced in shock at her beloved. The only other time she'd seen a man look so anguished and helpless had been in the war. He gripped Watari so tightly she heard the old man groan in pain. L tried to struggle into his preferred fetal position, but when his wounds prevented him from doing so wild distress marked his face and he began to shriek in a manner akin to a banshee.

"L, _mein Schatz_!" she cried in panic and rushed toward his side only to be hindered by Uzi being pressed to her forehead.

The old man bellowed in a manner far unfitting from his calm demeanor, "Don't you dare touch him you filthy Kraut!"

* * *

**5:31 AM**

Before joining the Kira investigation Touta Matsuda never had much exposure to the peculiar. That changed once he'd walked into a hotel room and encountered the man who claimed to be L. Matsuda wasn't certain what sort image he'd pinned to L's face; before that first meeting he thought only of that cold, stark letter, but whatever the image he'd been expecting L/Ryuzaki didn't match it. He was languid, disheveled and wild, and the worst part of the whole experience was the fact that Matsuda didn't even have a chance to accept his appearance before Ryuzaki shuffled into the sitting room and crouched down in that indescribable posture. Matsuda once cracked a joke to Aizawa that Ryuzaki's ass must be as soft as a babies behind because he'd never once seen him sitting on it.

Amazingly nobody else seemed to notice Ryuzaki's infinite oddities, and even after Matsuda moved to the new Kira Headquarters he was continually amazed by Ryuzaki. Matsuda simply suffered in silence as his mind reeled from each mounting experience. First it was the sitting; then the pinched way he held everything, then his identical sets of clothing, his unspeakably terrible diet, his obvious Freudian oral fixation, and the fact Ryuzaki never once closed the bathroom door. But Matsuda found Ryuzaki's manic insomnia the most disturbing. In the grueling months he'd dealt with Ryuzaki, he'd only seen him sleeping twice. Once he'd been sleeping in front of the computer in the exact same position he sat in, and the second time had been only a week ago. Matsuda had been trying to unclog a stopped up drain, and when he'd opened one of the bathroom cabinets he found Ryuzaki wedged inside and contently asleep with his thumb lodged in his mouth.

Matsuda thought from there on out the Kira Investigation couldn't get any stranger.

Then, only minutes ago, the giant came lumbering though his wall.

What was even worse that at the time the wall came crashing down Matsuda had been in bed watching henitai porn. He hadn't been anywhere close to ecstasy, but nothing killed the mood like witnessing the reinforced wall (Ryuzaki boasted that the walls were 95% likely to withstand a nuclear blast, as well a 9.0 magnitude earthquake.) swell and burst. The crumbling plaster gave image to the most formidable human Matsuda could have fathomed. The man must have spanned from six feet from shoulder to shoulder, and the muscles that roped his body must have been forged from flesh colored iron. His eyes feel instantly to Matsuda's naked crotch, and for a humbling moment Matsuda felt very inadequate indeed. He'd never felt particular well endowed in either manhood or courage, and the murderous glance of the giant served only to remind him of both shortcomings.

Before Matsuda could even fumbled for the remote the figure rushed across the room, crashed effortlessly into the opposite wall and then disappeared. Behind the monstrous man was a trail of vaguely man shaped holes punched into Ryuzaki's prized walls.

Now, that was the strangest thing he'd ever seen.

Touta Matsuda had no choice but to abandon his pornography and to flee in a wild haste. But even in his wild haste for survival he couldn't leave without Ryuzaki. Matsuda knew well that he was not the most brilliant detective of the age, but Matsuda was quite able to figure out that if there was a murderous giant on the loose than its target must be the man who claimed himself as L.

"RYUZAKI! RYUZAKI!" Matsuda screamed until his voice ached with his gun held high as he stumbled blindly about. There were countless holes in the walls, computers and bookshelves overturned and metal pillars snapped like kindling. It was amazing the building stood at all, and partial testament to just how loud Matsuda had been watching his henitai although Ryuzaki had also bragged the walls were sound proof.

Matsuda trembled so badly that his knees ached at the prospect of standing. There was no sign of anybody, not even the trail of crumbs and sugar that habitually followed Ryuzaki, not even that creepy German guard he'd once asked to guard a broom closet. "This is bad…this is really really bad! Oh god, Ryuzaki is going to kill me! How could I have done this…how…AAAHHHHH!"

In an instant Matsuda knew with utmost certainty that the figure that swooped of the shadows and blocked the hallway would forever his every nightmare. That was, if he lived to dream again. It appeared so quickly he at first thought it an apparition. This monster wasn't anywhere near as towering as the previous one, but held the same amount of power. The fact that this man wore a costume very similar to Batman's certainly didn't subtract from his imitating demeanor. Matsuda had never seen a Batman costume look so menacing; the black leather and Kevlar were molded to the exact shape of the monster's muscular body, but the lining of the cape was a deep blood red. The Batman symbol emblazed on his chest was normal enough but there were quite a few other changes; the ears were elongated by several dramatic inches and honed like knives, razor sharp metal points jutted from the elbow seam of his gloves, jet black hair flowed from beneath his mask and no sophisticated gadgets hung from his utility belt. Instead immense handguns hang there; something Batman should never possess.

The appreciation appeared less like Batman and more akin to a bat like demon. It seemed more fitting to term him a Bat-man.

Matsuda didn't hesitate. He simply fired three rapid shots. One of the few things he'd ever excelled in was marksman ship, and each one struck the apparition where it was most vulnerable, its head and exposed bits of the face. The Bat-man didn't so much as flinch as huge chucks of his flesh and jaw flew away and spattered on the wall. The torn cheek was crammed full of pointed fangs. The fiend reached up and tore off the top portion of his mask, making certain Matsuda saw his shattered mass of skull and brain.

Mastusda hear himself shrieking, and the scream rose to a credundo when the Batman swooped forward and grabbed him by the neck and trapped him next to his body. His decimated lips curled into a smile, Mastuda shuttered in cold, mind numbing terror that abruptly cut off even his screams.

"Well come on, tell me! Where is Detective L?" the Bat-man hissed in poorly pronounced Japanese, but the holes in his face appeared to have no effect on his speech.

"I…I…I am L!" Matsuda quivered without any believable inflection in his voice.

The Bat-man cackled, "Don't feed me that shit! WHERE IS L!" The Batman pulled free on his immense guns and placed the barrel directly under Matsuda's chin.

Once again fear racked through his body, and this time he felt it run down his legs in a warm jet.

The Bat-man jerked back and released him, and glanced down at the legs of his costume and noticed a peculiar moisture beaded on the leather. "You little shit head, you pissed all over my costume! DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH TIME AND EFFORT WENT INTO THIS!"

Self consciously Matsuda glanced down at his crouch and was vaguely embarrassed to find that he'd never properly concealed himself after the blonde giant's intrusion. All this time he'd been running around with his genitals on display. But the Bat-man unhanded him. Perhaps in the long run masturbating saved his life.

"Well, ANSWER ME! Do you think I'll hesitate for a second to return the favor and to splatter your brains across the wall? WHERE IS L!"

"Okay, okay I'll take you to him!" Matsuda cried and lowered his head in defeat. The moment the Bat-Man's gloved claws yanked him by collar and forced him to walk Matsuda found his feet shuffling forward in servile obedience. A moment later he heard a chilling scream. He'd only heard that particular tone of panic once before, but he knew instantly that scream belonged to Ryuzaki. His feet shuffled toward the scream and in obedience to the monster dressed as Batman like demon.

_Wow…and I thought the giant bursting through my wall was the strangest thing I've ever seen. _

_

* * *

_

**Death Note: How To Use**

**In order to steal ownership of the Death Note, one needs only to write down a name within the pages. If this is done without the knowledge or consent than the notebook shall pass to a new owner. **

**The Death Note still holds effect on genetically enhanced humans, however the cause of death must be specific to that humans weaknesses in order for death to occur. **

**German Translations:**

Schnell - Hurry or quickly! Ahh my first German word. :P

Bitte- Please

Mein Gott…es ist richtig. Ich bin in der Liebe mit ihm! - My God, it is true. I am in love with him.

Warum - Why

Was - What

Ich Liebe Dich- I Love You

Klar - Of course

Es ist dein Blut - It is your blood.

Ich habe Pläne - I have a plan.

Mein Schatz - My darling/my treasure.

**Coming Up Next!**

_The basement. Light and Misa. Meltdown. Vlad Dracula. A chase. Magic bullets. Okinawa. Integra and Walter. The Hellsing name. And most of it from Alucard's POV._


End file.
